come. You couldn't keep me--you wouldn't keep me--against my will!"

"Do you want to die, then?" the man demanded. "Are you tired of life?"

His eyes still shone piercingly down, but they read but little, for the
dancer's were firmly closed against them, even while the dark cropped
head nodded a strangely vigorous affirmative.

"Yes, that is it! I am so tired--so tired of life! Don't keep me! Let
me go--while I have the strength!" The little, white, sharp-featured
face, with its tight-shut eyes and childish, quivering mouth, was
painfully pathetic. "Death can't be more dreadful than life," the low
voice urged. "If I don't go back--I shall be so sorry afterwards. Why
should one live--to suffer?"

It was piteously spoken, so piteously that for a moment the man seemed
moved to compassion. His hold relaxed; but when the little form between
his hands took swift advantage and strained afresh for freedom he
instantly tightened his grip.

"No, No!" he said, harshly. "There are other things in life. You don't
know what you are doing. You are not responsible."

The dark eyes opened upon him then--wide, reproachful, mysteriously
far-seeing. "I shall not be responsible--if you make me live," said the
Dragon-Fly, with the air of one risking a final desperate throw.

It was almost an open challenge, and it was accepted instantly, with
grim decision. "Very well. The responsibility is mine," the man said
briefly. "Come with me!"

His arm encircled the narrow shoulders. He drew his young companion
unresisting from the spot. They left the glare of the furnace behind
them, and threaded their way through dark and winding alleys back to the
throbbing life of the city thoroughfares, back into the whirl and
stress of that human existence which both had nearly quitted--and one
had strenuously striven to quit--so short a time before.

CHAPTER II

NOBODY'S BUSINESS

"My name is Merryon," the man said, curtly. "I am a major in the Indian
Army--home on leave. Now tell me about yourself!"

He delivered the information in the brief, aggressive fashion that
seemed to be characteristic of him, and he looked over the head of his
young visitor as he did so, almost as if he made the statement against
his will.

The visitor, still clad in his great-coat, crouched like a dog on the
hearthrug before the fire in Merryon's sitting-room, and gazed with
wide, unblinking eyes into the flames.

After a few moments Merryon's eyes descende