, would never
give away a man who had trusted him. To be sure, it was not quite fair,
not altogether square; it was not playing the game as it should be played,
to gain her promise as a free man. Should he make a clean breast of it,
and tell her the whole wretched story now?

Perhaps he might if she had not been standing, a slender green-and-white,
nymph-like figure, against the background of sun-hot, shadow-flecked,
lichened stone, looking at him. The rosy light bathed her in its radiance.
And as she looked, it seemed to him that something was dawning in that
face of hers. He watched it, breathless with the realisation of his
dreams, his hopes, his desires. The prize was his. Every other baser
memory was drowning within him. It seemed to him that her purity, as he
bathed in it, washed him clean of stain. He forgot everything but the
secret that those sweet eyes told at last.

"My beloved! I'm not good enough to tie your blessed little shoes, and
yet no other man shall ever have you, hold you, call you his own....
Lynette, Lynette! Dear one, isn't there a single kiss? And I might get
shot to-morrow."

It was characteristic of him that his brave, gay mouth should laugh even
in the utterance of the appeal that melted her. She gave a little sob, and
raised her sweet face to his, flushing loveliest rosy red. She lifted her
slender arms and laid them about his strong young throat, and kissed him
very quietly and purely. He had meant to snatch her to his leaping heart
and cover her with eager, passionate caresses. But the strong impulse was
quelled. He said, almost with a sob:

"Is this your promise? Does this mean that you belong to me?"

Her breath caressed his cheek as she whispered:

"Yes."

He was thrilled and intoxicated and tortured at once to know himself her
chosen. Ah! why was he not free? Why had Chance and Luck and Fate forced
him to play a part like this?

"I wish to Heaven we had met a year ago!" he broke out impulsively.
"Half-a-dozen years ago--only you'd have been a mere kid--too young to
understand what Love means.... Why, Lynette darling! what is the matter?
What have I said that hurt?"

Her arms had fallen from about his neck. She shrank away from him. He drew
back, shocked into silence by the sudden, dreadful change in her. Her
eyes, curiously dulled and faded, looked at Beauvayse as though they saw
not him, but another man, through him and behind him. Her face was peaked
and pinched; her suppl