think
I quite realised what I was saying. I trust you, of course ...
implicitly... and you need not even fear... I shall not break my oath,
though your orders now seem to me needlessly callous and selfish.... I
will obey... you need not be afraid."

"I was not afraid of that, my good fellow."

"Of course, you do not understand... you cannot. To you, your honour,
the task which you have set yourself, has been your only fetish.... Love
in its true sense does not exist for you.... I see it now... you do not
know what it is to love."

Blakeney made no reply for the moment. He stood in the centre of the
room, with the yellow light of the lamp falling full now upon his tall
powerful frame, immaculately dressed in perfectly-tailored clothes, upon
his long, slender hands half hidden by filmy lace, and upon his face,
across which at this moment a heavy strand of curly hair threw a curious
shadow. At Armand's words his lips had imperceptibly tightened, his eyes
had narrowed as if they tried to see something that was beyond the range
of their focus.

Across the smooth brow the strange shadow made by the hair seemed to
find a reflex from within. Perhaps the reckless adventurer, the careless
gambler with life and liberty, saw through the walls of this squalid
room, across the wide, ice-bound river, and beyond even the gloomy pile
of buildings opposite, a cool, shady garden at Richmond, a velvety lawn
sweeping down to the river's edge, a bower of clematis and roses, with
a carved stone seat half covered with moss. There sat an exquisitely
beautiful woman with great sad eyes fixed on the far-distant horizon.
The setting sun was throwing a halo of gold all round her hair, her
white hands were clasped idly on her lap.

She gazed out beyond the river, beyond the sunset, toward an unseen
bourne of peace and happiness, and her lovely face had in it a look of
utter hopelessness and of sublime self-abnegation. The air was still.
It was late autumn, and all around her the russet leaves of beech and
chestnut fell with a melancholy hush-sh-sh about her feet.

She was alone, and from time to time heavy tears gathered in her eyes
and rolled slowly down her cheeks.

Suddenly a sigh escaped the man's tightly-pressed lips. With a strange
gesture, wholly unusual to him, he passed his hand right across his
eyes.

"Mayhap you are right, Armand," he said quietly; "mayhap I do not know
what it is to love."

Armand turned to go. There was not