as a woman to look after. Why are you so
pale, Lena?"

"Am I pale?" she asked negligently.

"You are." Heyst was really anxious.

"Well, it isn't from fright," she protested truthfully.

Indeed, what she felt was a sort of horror which left her absolutely
in the full possession of all her faculties; more difficult to bear,
perhaps, for that reason, but not paralysing to her fortitude.

Heyst in his turn smiled at her.

"I really don't know that there is any reason to be frightened."

"I mean I am not frightened for myself."

"I believe you are very plucky," he said. The colour had returned to her
face. "I" continued Heyst, "am so rebellious to outward impressions
that I can't say that much about myself. I don't react with sufficient
distinctness." He changed his tone. "You know I went to see those men
first thing this morning."

"I know. Be careful!" she murmured.

"I wonder how one can be careful! I had a long talk with--but I don't
believe you have seen them. One of them is a fantastically thin, long
person, apparently ailing; I shouldn't wonder if he were really so. He
makes rather a point of it in a mysterious manner. I imagine he must
have suffered from tropical fevers, but not so much as he tries to make
out. He's what people would call a gentleman. He seemed on the point of
volunteering a tale of his adventures--for which I didn't ask him--but
remarked that it was a long story; some other time, perhaps.

"'I suppose you would like to know who I am?' he asked me.

"I told him I would leave it to him, in a tone which, between gentlemen,
could have left no doubt in his mind. He raised himself on his elbow--he
was lying down on the camp-bed--and said:

"'I am he who is--'"

Lena seemed not to be listening; but when Heyst paused, she turned her
head quickly to him. He took it for a movement of inquiry, but in this
he was wrong. A great vagueness enveloped her impressions, but all her
energy was concentrated on the struggle that she wanted to take upon
herself, in a great exaltation of love and self-sacrifice, which is
woman's sublime faculty; altogether on herself, every bit of it, leaving
him nothing, not even the knowledge of what she did, if that were
possible. She would have liked to lock him up by some stratagem. Had
she known of some means to put him to sleep for days she would have used
incantations or philtres without misgivings. He seemed to her too good
for such contacts, and not sufficientl