e presence
of Bertrand in itself made candour impossible. Why this should be she did
not know. It was a problem which she had not attempted to solve. But the
fact remained. She dreaded unspeakably the possibility of having to
describe the intimacy that had existed between herself and Bertrand in
the old, free, Valpre days. She dreaded the keen searching of the grey
eyes that, if they sought long enough, were bound to find her soul, and
not only to find, but to enter it, to penetrate to its most hidden
corner, and to draw out into the full light of day one of her most sacred
possessions. She felt that she could not bear this probing. The very
thought of it was horrible to her, and in connection with it the steady
scrutiny of her husband's eyes became almost a thing abhorrent. Vaguely
she knew, without realizing, that she cherished deep in that inmost
shrine something which he must never see, something that it would be
agony to show him, something that even now gnawed secretly at her
quivering heart. She always shrank from his direct look, though she would
not have him know it. The calm, level gaze frightened her, she knew not
why. Perhaps the secret of all her fear of him lay hidden in this problem
that she dared not face.

No, she could not endure a full revelation of the truth. Bertrand had
declared that Mordaunt could not discover what was non-existent, but it
was not this that Chris feared. It was something infinitely more
terrible, a floating suspicion that might harden into actual fact at any
moment.

And so her whole being was concentrated upon avoiding the catastrophe
that instinct warned her to be impending. Everything hung upon the
keeping of that secret which once had seemed to her so small a thing. It
had grown to mighty proportions of late. She did not ask herself
wherefore; but once in the night she smiled a piteous little smile at the
recollection of Manon, the maid-of-all-work, and her story of the spell
that bound all who entered the Magic Cave. She remembered how she had
laughed over it; but Bertrand had not laughed. He had been quite grave;
she remembered that also. He had even spoken as if he believed in it. For
a little her thoughts dwelt upon that night, on the quick confidences he
had poured out, on her own consternation over the nature of his
enterprise, on the words he had uttered then to comfort her. She had
never given them much thought before. To-night, lying by her husband's
side, they retu