, throwing back her head.

Just then the English maid came to say that the six big Englishmen
who had been there before were in the kitchen again, and asking to
see her master, not her mistress, this time. In an instant Greeba's
little burst of disdain was spent, and she was all humility and
entreaty.

"Don't go to them," she cried. "Don't listen to them."

"Who are they?" he asked.

"My brothers. I have not had time to tell you, but I will tell you
now."

She put her arms about his neck as if to hold him.

"What have they come for?"

"To tell you some falsehood, and so revenge themselves on me. I know
it, I feel it. Ah, a woman's instinct is sure. But, dear Michael, you
will not receive them. Refuse, and I will tell you such a story. And
you will laugh----"

"Let me go, Greeba," he said, unloosing the grip of her tightening
arms, and the next moment he was gone from the room. Then all the
spirit of the woman arose in Greeba, and, throwing aside her vague
fears, she resolved, as only a woman could, in the cruel hour when a
dear heart seemed to be slipping away from her, that, come what
would, she should hold to her husband at all hazards, and that
whatever her brothers might say against her, let it be true or false,
if it threatened to separate her from him, she must deny it. What
matter about the truth? Her love was before everything. And who was
to disprove her word? Jason alone could do so, and his tongue was
sealed forever in a silence as deep as the grave's.

Michael Sunlocks went out of the room like a man in a dream: an ugly
dream, a dream of darkening terrors undefined. He came back to it
like one who has awakened to find that his dream has come true.
Within one hour his face seemed to have grown old. He stooped, he
stumbled on the floor, his limbs shook under him, he was a broken and
sorrowful man. At sight of him Greeba could scarcely restrain an
impulse to scream. She ran to him, and cried, "Michael, husband, what
have they told you?"

At first he looked stupidly into her quivering face, and then
glancing down at a paper he held in one hand he made an effort to
conceal it behind him. She was too quick for him, and cried, "What is
it? Show it me."

"It's nothing," he said; "nothing, love, nothing----"

"What have they told you?" she said again, "tell me--tell me."

"They say that you loved Jason," he answered with a great effort.

"It's a lie," she cried stoutly.

"They say that you were t