ral support; because she was a human being who
counted; because she was no longer defending herself for herself alone;
because of the faith that had been born in her--the faith in the man of
her destiny, and perhaps in the Heaven which had sent him so wonderfully
to cross her path.

She had defended herself principally by maintaining a desperate,
murderous clutch on Ricardo's windpipe, till she felt a sudden
relaxation of the terrific hug in which he stupidly and ineffectually
persisted to hold her. Then with a supreme effort of her arms and of
her suddenly raised knee, she sent him flying against the partition.
The cedar-wood chest stood in the way, and Ricardo, with a thump which
boomed hollow through the whole bungalow, fell on it in a sitting
posture, half strangled, and exhausted not so much by the efforts as by
the emotions of the struggle.

With the recoil of her exerted strength, she too reeled, staggered back,
and sat on the edge of the bed. Out of breath, but calm and unabashed,
she busied herself in readjusting under her arms the brown and yellow
figured Celebes sarong, the tuck of which had come undone during the
fight. Then, folding her bare arms tightly on her breast, she leaned
forward on her crossed legs, determined and without fear.

Ricardo, leaning forward too, his nervous force gone, crestfallen like a
beast of prey that has missed its spring, met her big grey eyes looking
at him--wide open, observing, mysterious--from under the dark arches of
her courageous eyebrows. Their faces were not a foot apart. He ceased
feeling about his aching throat and dropped the palms of his hands
heavily on his knees. He was not looking at her bare shoulders, at her
strong arms; he was looking down at the floor. He had lost one of his
straw slippers. A chair with a white dress on it had been overturned.
These, with splashes of water on the floor out of a brusquely misplaced
sponge-bath, were the only traces of the struggle.

Ricardo swallowed twice consciously, as if to make sure of his throat
before he spoke again:

"All right. I never meant to hurt you--though I am no joker when it
comes to it."

He pulled up the leg of his pyjamas to exhibit the strapped knife.
She glanced at it without moving her head, and murmured with scornful
bitterness:

"Ah, yes--with that thing stuck in my side. In no other way."

He shook his head with a shamefaced smile.

"Listen! I am quiet now. Straight--I am. I don't need to e