felt a hand on her arm.

"Don't stop me! Let me go!" she cried.

"Where to?" asked Perigal's voice.

She pressed forward.

"Don't be a little fool. Are you mad? Stop!"

He forced her to a standstill.

"Now come back," he said.

"No. Let me go."

"Are you so mad as to do anything foolish?"

By way of reply, she made a vain effort to free herself. He tried to
reason with her, but nothing he urged could change her resolution. Her
face was expressionless; her eyes dull; her mind appeared to be
obsessed by a determination to take her life. He changed his tactics.

"Very well, then," he said, "come along."

She looked at him, surprised, as she started off.

"Where you go, I go; whatever you do, I do."

She paused to say:

"If you'd let me have my own way, I should be now out of my misery."

"You only think of yourself," he cried. "You don't mind what would
happen to me if you--if you--!"

"A lot you'd care!" she interrupted.

"Don't talk rot. It's coming down worse than ever. Come back to the
hotel."

"Never that," she said, compressing her lip.

"You'll catch your death here."

"A good thing too. I can't go on living. If I do, I shall go mad," she
cried, pressing her hands to her head.

Passers-by were beginning to notice them.

Without success, Perigal urged her to walk.

She became hysterically excited and upbraided him in no uncertain
voice. She seemed to be working herself into a paroxysm of frenzy. To
calm her, perhaps because he was moved by her extremity, he overwhelmed
her with endearments, the while he kissed her hands, her arms, her
face, when no one was by.

She was influenced by his caresses, for she, presently, permitted
herself to walk with him down the street, where they turned into the
railed-in walk which crossed the churchyard.

He redoubled his efforts to induce in her a more normal state of mind.

"Don't you love me, little Mavis?" he asked. "If you did, you wouldn't
distress me so."

"Love you!" she laughed scornfully.

"Then why can't you listen and believe what I say?"

He said more to the same effect, urging, begging, praying her to trust
him to marry her, when he could see his way clearly.

Perhaps because the mind, when confronted with danger, fights for
existence as lustily as does the body, Mavis, against her convictions,
strove with some success to believe the honeyed assurances which
dropped so glibly from her lover's tongue. His eloquence bore down her
a