iving you this trouble. It was only--a
passing weakness."

He mopped his forehead, and leaned slowly forward, moving with caution.

"But you are ill! You are in pain!" Chris exclaimed.

"No," he said. "No, I have no pain. I am better. I am quite well."

Again he looked up at her, smiling. "But how I have alarmed you!" he said
regretfully. "And your arm, _petite_? It is not burnt--not at all?"

He took her hand gently, and put back the tattered sleeve to satisfy
himself on this point.

Chris said nothing. Her lips had begun to tremble. But she winced a
little when he touched a place inside her arm where the flame had
scorched her.

He glanced up sharply. "Ah! that hurts you, that?"

"No," she said, "no. It is nothing." And then, with sudden passion:
"Bertie, what does a little scorch like that matter when you--when
you--" She broke off, fighting with herself, and pointed a shaking finger
at his wrist.

It had been blistered by the flame, and his shirt-cuff was charred; but
the injury was slight, remarkably so in consideration of the utter
recklessness he had displayed.

He snapped his fingers with easy indifference. "Ah, bah! It is a
_bagatelle_, that. In one week it will be gone. And now--why, _cherie_--"

He stopped abruptly. She had dropped upon her knees beside him, her hands
upon his shoulders, her face, tragic in its pain, upturned to his.

"Bertie, why do you try to hide things from me? Do you think I am quite
blind? You are ill. I know you are ill. What is it, dear? Won't you tell
me?"

He made a quick gesture as if he would check either her words or her
touch, and then suddenly he stiffened. For in that instant there ran
between them once again, vital, electric, unquenchable, that Flame that
had kindled long ago on a morning of perfect summer, that Flame which
once kindled burns on for ever.

It happened all in a moment, so swiftly that they were caught unawares in
the spell of it, so overwhelmingly that neither for the space of several
throbbing seconds possessed the volition to draw back. And in the deep
silence the man's eyes held the woman's irresistibly, yet by no conscious
effort, while each entered the other's soul and gazed upon the one
supreme secret which each had mutely sheltered there.

It was to the man that full realization first came--a realization more
overwhelming than anything that had gone before, striking him with a
stunning force that shattered every other emotion like a bu