he
man whom she loved.

Heyst stirred slightly.

"We had better be getting back, Lena, since we can't stay all night in
the woods--or anywhere else, for that matter. We are the slaves of
this infernal surprise which has been sprung on us by--shall I say
fate?--your fate, or mine."

It was the man who had broken the silence, but it was the woman who
led the way. At the very edge of the forest she stopped, concealed by a
tree. He joined her cautiously.

"What is it? What do you see, Lena?" he whispered.

She said that it was only a thought that had come into her head. She
hesitated for a moment giving him over her shoulder a shining gleam in
her grey eyes. She wanted to know whether this trouble, this danger,
this evil, whatever it was, finding them out in their retreat, was not a
sort of punishment.

"Punishment?" repeated Heyst. He could not understand what she meant.
When she explained, he was still more surprised. "A sort of retribution,
from an angry Heaven?" he said in wonder. "On us? What on earth for?"

He saw her pale face darken in the dusk. She had blushed. Her whispering
flowed very fast. It was the way they lived together--that wasn't right,
was it? It was a guilty life. For she had not been forced into it,
driven, scared into it. No, no--she had come to him of her own free
will, with her whole soul yearning unlawfully.

He was so profoundly touched that he could not speak for a moment. To
conceal his trouble, he assumed his best Heystian manner.

"What? Are our visitors then messengers of morality, avengers of
righteousness, agents of Providence? That's certainly an original view.
How flattered they would be if they could hear you!"

"Now you are making fun of me," she said in a subdued voice which broke
suddenly.

"Are you conscious of sin?" Heyst asked gravely. She made no answer.
"For I am not," he added; "before Heaven, I am not!"

"You! You are different. Woman is the tempter. You took me up from pity.
I threw myself at you."

"Oh, you exaggerate, you exaggerate. It was not so bad as that," he said
playfully, keeping his voice steady with an effort.

He considered himself a dead man already, yet forced to pretend that
he was alive for her sake, for her defence. He regretted that he had
no Heaven to which he could recommend this fair, palpitating handful of
ashes and dust--warm, living sentient his own--and exposed helplessly to
insult, outrage, degradation, and infinite misery of the b