mposure goaded her beyond all endurance. She scarcely waited for
him to finish, nor was she wholly responsible for what she said.

"Was there only one man among you, then?" she asked, with headlong
contempt.

He made her a curious, jerky bow. "One man--yes," he said. "The rest
were mere sheep, with the exception of one--who was a cripple."

Her heart contracted suddenly with a pain that was physical. She felt
as if he had struck her, and it goaded her to a fiercer cruelty.

"You knew he would never come back!" she declared her voice quivering
uncontrollably with the passion that shook her. "You--you never meant
him to come back!"

He opened his eyes wide for a single instant, and she fancied that she
had touched him. It was the first time in her memory that she had ever
seen them fully. Instinctively she avoided them, as she would have
avoided a flash of lightning.

And then he spoke, and she knew at once that her wild accusation had
in no way hurt him. "You think that, do you?" he said, and his tone
sounded to her as though he barely repressed a laugh. "Awfully nice of
you! I wonder what exactly you take me for."

She did not keep him in suspense on that point. If she had never had
the strength to tell him before, she could tell him now.

"I take you for a fiend!" she cried hysterically. "I take you for a
fiend!"

He turned sharply from her, so sharply that she was conscious of a
moment's fear overmastering her madness. But instantly, with his back
to her, he spoke, and her brief misgiving was gone.

"It doesn't matter much now what you take me for," he said, and again
in the cracked notes of his voice she seemed to hear the echo of a
laugh. "You won't need to seek any more protectors so far as I am
concerned. You will never see me again unless the gods ordain that
you should come and find me. It isn't the way of an eagle to swoop
twice--particularly an eagle with only one wing."

The laugh was quite audible now, and she never saw how that one hand
of his was clenched and pressed against his side. He had reached the
door while he was speaking. Turning swiftly, he cast one flickering,
inscrutable glance towards her, and then with no gesture of farewell
was gone. She heard his receding footsteps die away while she
struggled dumbly to quell the tumult of her heart.

CHAPTER XLIV

LOVE'S PRISONER

Late that evening a scribbled note reached Muriel from Dr. Jim.

"You can do nothing whatever," he w