nstead of speaking.

She sighed, and the sigh was broken by a quick-drawn breath. Slowly
Dalrymple turned his white face and gleaming eyes to her veiled head.
Still she neither spoke nor moved. He, in memory, saw her face, her
mouth, and her eyes through the thick stuff that hid them. The silence
became awful to him. His hands opened and shut convulsively.

She heard his breath and she saw the uncertain shadow of his hand,
moving on the black and white squares of the pavement. She made a
slight, short movement towards him and then stepped suddenly back,
overcoming the temptation to go to him.

"No!"

He uttered the single word with a low, fierce cry. In an instant his
arms were around her, pressing her, lifting her, straining her, almost
bruising her. In an instant his lips were kissing a face whiter than his
own, eyes that flamed like summer lightning between his kisses, lips
crushed and hurt by his, but still not kissed enough, hands that were
raised to resist, but lingered to be kissed in turn, lest anything
should be lost.

A little splintering crash, the sound of a glass falling upon a stone
floor in the next room, broke the stillness. Dalrymple's arms relaxed,
and the two stood for one moment facing one another, pale, with fire in
their eyes and hearts beating more loudly than before. Dalrymple raised
his hand to his forehead, as though he were dazed, and made an uncertain
step in the direction of the door. Maria raised her white hands towards
him, and her eyelids drooped, even while she looked into his face.

He kissed her once more with a kiss in which all other kisses seemed to
meet and live and die a lingering, sweet death. She sank into the deep
old easy-chair, and when she looked up, he was gone.

CHAPTER IX.

IT rained during the afternoon, and Dalrymple sat in his small
laboratory, among his books and the simple apparatus he used for his
experiments. His little window was closed, and the southwest wind drove
the shower against the clouded panes of glass, so that the rain came
through the ill-fitted strips of lead which joined them, and ran down in
small streams to the channel in the stone sill, whence the water found
its way out through a hole running through the wall. He sat in his
rush-bottomed chair, sideways by the deal table, one long leg crossed
over the other. His hand lay on an open book, and his fingers
occasionally tapped the page impatiently, while his eyes were fixed on
the wi