er eyes in time to see him
come quickly towards her. She threw out a defensive hand, but he caught
the arm itself to him and, before she could resist, had kissed it again
and again through the interstices of the lace sleeve. Upon her bare
shoulder she felt the sudden passion of his lips.

A quick, sharp gasp, a sudden qualm of breathlessness wrenched through
her, to her very finger tips, with a fierce leap of the blood, a wild
bound of the heart.

She tore back from him with a violence that rent away the lace upon her
arm, and stood off from him, erect and rigid, a fine, delicate,
trembling vibrating through all her being. On her pale cheeks the
colour suddenly flamed.

"Go, go," was all she had voice to utter.

"And may I see you once more--only once?"

"Yes, yes, anything, only go, go--if you love me!"

He left the room. In another moment she heard the front door close.

"Curtis," said Laura, when next she saw her husband, "Curtis, you could
not--stay with me, that last time. Remember? When we were to go for a
drive. Can you spend this evening with me? Just us two, here at
home--or I'll go out with you. I'll do anything you say." She looked at
him steadily an instant. "It is not--not easy for a woman to ask--for
me to ask favours like this. Each time I tell myself it will be the
last. I am--you must remember this, Curtis, I am--perhaps I am a little
proud. Don't you see?"

They were at breakfast table again. It was the morning after Laura had
given Corthell his dismissal. As she spoke Jadwin brought his hand down
upon the table with a bang.

"You bet I will," he exclaimed; "you bet I'll stay with you to-night.
Business can go to the devil! And we won't go out either; we'll stay
right here. You get something to read to me, and we'll have one of our
old evenings again. We--"

All at once Jadwin paused, laid down his knife and fork, and looked
strangely to and fro about the room.

"We'll have one of our old evenings again," he repeated, slowly.

"What is it, Curtis?" demanded his wife. "What is the matter?"

"Oh--nothing," he answered.

"Why, yes there was. Tell me."

"No, no. I'm all right now," he returned, briskly enough.

"No," she insisted. "You must tell me. Are you sick?"

He hesitated a moment. Then:

"Sick?" he queried. "No, indeed. But--I'll tell you. Since a few days
I've had," he put his fingers to his forehead between his eyes, "I've
had a queer sensation right there. It comes and goes