and to his forehead and looked
round, then down at her, as if from a great height.

She saw that he was aroused at last, sprang to her feet, and poured
out the details of the scheme again.

"I run no risk, you see. They would not dare to punish me, a
woman--Lady Landale--even if they could. Be quick, the precious
moments are going by. I gave the man some gold to leave us as long as
he could, but any moment he may be upon us."

"Poor woman," said Jack, and his voice seemed as far off as his gaze;
"see these chains."

She staggered back an instant, but the next, crying:

"The file--the file--that was why Rene gave it to me." She seized the
skirt as it lay at her feet, and, striving with agonised endeavours to
control the trembling of her hands, drew forth from its pocket a file
and would have taken his wrist. But he held his hands above his head,
out of her reach, while a strange smile, almost of triumph, parted his
lips.

"The bitterness of death is past," he said.

She tore at him in a frenzy, but, repulsed by his immobility, fell
again broken at his feet.

In a torrent of words she besought him, for Adrian's sake, for the
sake of the beautiful world, of his youth, of the sweetness of
life--in her madness, at last, for her own sake! She had ruined him,
but she would atone, she would make him happy yet. If he died it was
death to her....

When at length her voice sank away from sheer exhaustion, he helped
her to rise, and seated her on the chair; then told her quietly that
he was quite determined.

"Go home," said he, "and leave me in peace. I thank you for what you
would have done, thank you for trying to bring Madeleine," he paused a
moment. How purely he had loved her--and twice, twice she had failed
him. "Yet, I do not blame her," he went on as if to himself; "I did
not deserve to see her, and it has made all the rest easy. Remember,"
again addressing the woman whom hopelessness seemed for a moment to
have benumbed, "that if you would yet do me a kindness, be kind to
her. If you would atone--atone to Adrian."

"To Adrian?" echoed Molly, stung to the quick, with a pale smile of
exceeding bitterness. And with a rush of pride, strength returned to
her.

"I leave you resolved to die then?" she asked him, fiercely.

"You leave me glad to die," he replied, unhesitatingly.

She spoke no more, but got up to replace her garments. He assisted her
in silence, but as his awkward bound hands touched her she shu