ent very far away. Adrea, with her soft, passion-lit
eyes, and dusky, oriental face, her lithe, voluptuous figure and the
faint perfumes of her rustling draperies, seemed less to him then than
a short while ago he could have believed possible. He could not think
of that scene without a shudder,--it had left its mark in a certain
way for ever,--but it was not so constantly present to him. He knew
that, for the first time, a woman had tempted him sorely. He knew,
too, and he alone, how nearly he had yielded. His sudden passion, her
strange Eastern beauty, and the fascination which it had exercised
over him, together with the soft sensuousness of her surroundings,
had formed a strong coalition, and to-day he recognised, for the first
time, how much he owed his victory to the girl who was riding by his
side. Even in those breathless moments of hesitation he had found time
to consider that if he yielded to Adrea's pleading, he could never
again take Lady May's hand, or meet her frank, open gaze. The pure
healthfulness of life which had been so dear to him would be tainted
for ever. The moorland breezes of his northern home would never strike
the same chords in his nature again. All these recollections had
flashed across his mind at that critical moment, lending strength to
resist and crush his passion. And to-day he had commenced to reap his
reward. To-day he had tasted once more the sweets of these things, and
found how dear they still were to him. He could still look into Lady
May's fair, pure face unshamed, and find all the old pleasure in
listening to her frank, girlish talk; and he could still bare his
head to the sweeping winds, and lift his face to the sun and gaze with
silent admiration at the faint, deepening colours in the western
sky, as Lady May and he rode homeward across the moor in the late
afternoon. All these joys would have been lost to him for ever,--these
and many others. Adrea could never have repaid him for their loss.

So Paul, who had come home from London pale and silent, with the marks
of a great struggle upon him, lay back in an arm chair and watched
the firelight play upon Lady May's fair face with more than a passive
interest. Mrs. de Vaux's cherished scheme had never been so near its
accomplishment; for if she could have read Paul's thoughts she would
have known that he was thinking of Lady May more tenderly than he had
ever done before. Meeting his steadfast, almost wistful, gaze, she
became al