swam in sudden tears. And Saxham, as he looked at her, felt his
heart contract in a spasm of bitter jealousy. All that love for the dead,
and not a crumb for the living! He saw Beauvayse, his rival still,
stretching a hand from the grave to keep her from him. And he could have
cried aloud:

"Those tears are for a trickster who cheated you into loving him. Listen,
now, and I, who have never lied, even to win you, will show him to you as
he really was!..."

But he did not yield to the temptation to enlighten her. A vision rose up
before him of a dying man on a camp-bed, and he heard his own voice
saying:

"I will never tell her! I will not blacken any man's reputation to further
my own interests!"

She was speaking, telling him something. He came back out of the fierce
mental struggle to listen to the voice that was so sweet and clear, and
yet so cold, so cold....

"Imagine it! I met an old friend to-day at my dressmaker's in Conduit
Street. Not a man. A girl who was a pupil at the Convent at
Gueldersdorp--or, rather, I should say a woman, for she is married."

Saxham asked:

"Is she an Englishwoman or a Colonial?"

"She is of mingled French and Dutch blood. She was a Miss Du Taine. Her
father was a member of the Volksraad at Pretoria. He controls large
interests on the Rand, and has an estate near Johannesburg. She is married
to an English gentleman. He is very rich, and has a title. She told it me,
but I have forgotten it. She asked me to drive home and lunch with
her...." She hesitated. "I did not want to go," she said.

"Well, and what happened then?" Saxham asked.

"I made some kind of excuse, and hailed a hansom, and drove to Lady
Castleclare's. I lunched with her. She is always very kind. She thought
the pearls were beautiful. But--but surely they cost you a great deal of
money?"

She touched a string of the gleaming, milky things that encircled her
white throat above the lace cravat. Saxham said, smiling:

"They did not cost more than I could afford to pay. I am glad you liked
them. I told Marie to put them on your dressing-table, where you would be
likely to see them in the morning."

"You are too good to me!" she said, with quivering lips, looking at him.
Her white hand wavered in the air, as though she meant to stretch it out
to him.

"It is not possible to be too good--to you!" said Saxham curtly. He would
not see the outstretched hand. She drew it back, and faltered:

"You give me e