he father who loved him had not known of the secret, fantastic
danger of the dam. And the woman who should have destroyed the fantasy
had encouraged it! But God knew what was in the heart of that strange
woman; Christine Chaine did not--nor wished to. All she wished was
that she might never see her again. As for Saltire, her proud resolve
was to blot him from her memory, to forget that he had ever occupied
her heart for a moment. But--O God, how it hurt, that empty,
desecrated heart! How it haunted her, the face she had thought so
beautiful, with its air of strength and chivalry, that now she knew to
be a mockery and a lie!

She sat in the shuttered gloom, with her hands pressed to her temples,
and bitter tears that could no longer be held back sped down her
cheeks. In all the dark hours since she had stolen back to the
nursery, overwhelmed by the discovery of a hateful secret, she had not
wept. Her spirit had lain like a stricken thing in the ashes of
humiliation, and her heart had stayed crushed and dead. "Cold as a
stone in a valley lone." Now it was wakened to pain once more by the
scent of three yellow roses carefully placed by Roddy in a jug on the
table. The scent of those flowers told her that she must go wounded
all her life. She could "never again be friends with roses." He had
even spoiled those for her. How dared he? Oh, how dared he come to
her with gifts of flowers in his hands straight from a guilty intrigue
with another man's wife?

The children stirred and began to chirrup drowsily, and she hastily
collected herself, forcing back her tears and assuming the
expressionless mask which life so often makes women wear. She was only
just in time. A moment later, Isabel van Cannan came into the room
with a packet of letters in her hands.

"Oh, Miss Chaine," she said, with her pretty, child-like air, "would it
be too much to ask you to take down these letters to the store
presently? The mail is to leave about four o'clock. I have to go out
myself by and by, but the Saxbys' house is in the opposite direction,
as you know, and I am really not able to knock about too much in this
heat."

"Certainly I will take them," said Christine. "But the children?"

"They must not go, of course. Indeed, I would not ask you to go out in
this blaze, but I don't like to trust letters with servants. There is
no hurry, however. Finish your own letters first, then bring the
children to my room. They will