"

"May I not know why you sent them away?"

He said, his haggard profile turned to her, a muscle of his pale cheek
twitching:

"I am going away myself: that is the reason why. All debts are paid. I
have completed all the arrangements, entailing the minimum of annoyance
upon you."

"May I not come with you upon your voyage?"

His eyes were still averted as his grey lips answered:

"No! I am going where you cannot come!"

"Owen, tell me where you are going?"

Her tone of entreaty knocked at the door of his barred heart. He winced
palpably. "Excuse me," he said, and took another step towards the door.
She stopped him with:

"You are not excused from answering my question!"

"I am going, first to get you some breakfast," said Saxham curtly, "and
then to find a woman to attend upon you here."

"I need no breakfast, thanks! I want no attendant!"

"You must have someone," said Saxham brusquely.

"I must have your answer," she said in a tone quite new to him. "What is
your secret purpose? What are you hiding from me in that closed hand?"

He moved his left hand slightly, undoing the fingers and giving a glimpse
of the empty palm.

"Not that hand. The other!" She pointed to the clenched right. How tall
she had grown, and how womanly! "Love has done this!" was his aching
thought. She seemed a princess of faery, fresh from a bath of magic
waters. Her very gait was changed, her every gesture seemed new. Purpose
and decision and quiet self-control breathed from her; her voice had tones
in it unheard of him before. Her eyes were radiant as he had never yet
seen them, golden stars, centred and rimmed with night, shining in a pale
glory that was her face....

"All that for the other man! Well, let him have it!" thought Saxham, and
involuntarily glanced at his clenched right hand.

"Please open it and show me what you have there!" she begged him.

Her tones were full of pleading music. His face hardened grimly to
withstand. His muscular fingers closed in a vice-like grip over what he
held. But she moved to him with a whisper of soft trailing garments, and
took the shut hand in both her own. She bent her exquisite head and kissed
it, and Saxham's fingers of iron were no more than wax. Something clicked
in his throat as they opened, that was like the turning of a rusty lock.
And the little blue phial, with the yellow poison-label, gave up his
deadly intention to her eyes. She cried out and snatched it, and flung it