leaned toward
him, not away from him. And in the moment that followed, when he crushed
her in his arms, the brain of her, concerned with the superficial aspects
of life, was in revolt; while the heart of her, the woman of her,
concerned with life itself, exulted triumphantly. It was in moments like
this that she felt to the uttermost the greatness of her love for Martin,
for it was almost a swoon of delight to her to feel his strong arms about
her, holding her tightly, hurting her with the grip of their fervor. At
such moments she found justification for her treason to her standards,
for her violation of her own high ideals, and, most of all, for her tacit
disobedience to her mother and father. They did not want her to marry
this man. It shocked them that she should love him. It shocked her,
too, sometimes, when she was apart from him, a cool and reasoning
creature. With him, she loved him--in truth, at times a vexed and
worried love; but love it was, a love that was stronger than she.

"This La Grippe is nothing," he was saying. "It hurts a bit, and gives
one a nasty headache, but it doesn't compare with break-bone fever."

"Have you had that, too?" she queried absently, intent on the heaven-sent
justification she was finding in his arms.

And so, with absent queries, she led him on, till suddenly his words
startled her.

He had had the fever in a secret colony of thirty lepers on one of the
Hawaiian Islands.

"But why did you go there?" she demanded.

Such royal carelessness of body seemed criminal.

"Because I didn't know," he answered. "I never dreamed of lepers. When
I deserted the schooner and landed on the beach, I headed inland for some
place of hiding. For three days I lived off guavas, ohia-apples, and
bananas, all of which grew wild in the jungle. On the fourth day I found
the trail--a mere foot-trail. It led inland, and it led up. It was the
way I wanted to go, and it showed signs of recent travel. At one place
it ran along the crest of a ridge that was no more than a knife-edge. The
trail wasn't three feet wide on the crest, and on either side the ridge
fell away in precipices hundreds of feet deep. One man, with plenty of
ammunition, could have held it against a hundred thousand.

"It was the only way in to the hiding-place. Three hours after I found
the trail I was there, in a little mountain valley, a pocket in the midst
of lava peaks. The whole place was terraced for taro-pat