thout her own volition. She was
conscious of a choking sensation within her as though iron bands
were tightening about her heart. It beat in leaps and bounds like a
tortured thing striving to escape. But through it all she sat quite
motionless, her eyes fixed upon Lady Bassett's face, noting its faint,
wry smile, as the eyes of a prisoner on the rack might note the grim
lines on the face of the torturer.

"My dear," Lady Bassett said, "he has gone into a Buddhist monastery
in Tibet."

Calmly the words fell through smiling lips. Only words! Only words!
But with how deadly a thrust they pierced the heart of the woman
who heard them none but herself would ever know. She gave no sign of
suffering. She only stared wide-eyed before her as an image, devoid of
expression, inanimate, sphinx-like, while that awful constriction grew
straiter round her heart.

Lady Bassett was already turning to go when the deep voice arrested
her.

"Who told you this?"

She looked back, holding the open door. "I scarcely know who first
mentioned it. I have heard it from so many people,--in fact the news
is general property--Captain Gresham of the Guides told me for one. He
has just gone back to Peshawur. The news reached him, I believe, from
there. Then there was Colonel Cathcart for another. He was talking of
it only this afternoon at the Club, saying what a deplorable example
it was for an Englishman to set. He and Mr. Bobby Fraser had quite a
hot argument about it. Mr. Fraser has such advanced ideas, but I must
admit that I rather admire the staunch way in which he defends them.
There, dear child! You must not keep me gossiping any longer. You look
positively haggard. I earnestly hope a good sleep will restore you,
for I cannot possibly take that wan face to the Rajah's ball'."

Lady Bassett departed with the words, shaking her head tolerantly and
still smiling.

But for long after she had gone, Muriel remained with fixed eyes and
tense muscles, watching, watching, dumbly, immovably, despairingly, at
the locked door of her paradise.

So this was the key to his silence--the reason that her message had
gone unanswered. She had stretched out her hands to him too late--too
late.

And ever through the barren desert of her vigil a man's voice, vital
and passionate, rang and echoed in a maddening, perpetual refrain.

"All your life you will remember that I was once yours to take or to
throw away. And--you wanted me, yet--you chose to thr