y a back
way. I shall say I couldn't find you."

They were walking along the path, side by side. His muscular hands were
pendant; he had attempted no further possession of her, had not tried to
kiss her. Perhaps he knew that a kiss would have fired her to revolt,
and once revolting she would be lost to him. Perhaps he was not guided
by policy at all, but by the instinctive touch of his power over
men--and women.

Cicely was beginning to recover her nerve, but her thoughts were in a
whirl. She was not angry; her chief desire was to go away by herself and
think. In the meantime she wanted no further food for thought. But that
was a matter not in her hands.

"I'm going away in a fortnight, you know," he said. "Back to Tibet. I
left some things undone there."

"You only came home a month ago," she said, clutching eagerly at a topic
not alarmingly personal.

"I know. But I'm tired of it--the drawing-rooms and the women. I want to
be doing. _You_ know."

She thought she did know. The rough appeal thrown out in those two words
found a way through her armour, which his insolent mastery had only
dented and bruised. It gave her a better conceit of herself. This was a
big man, and he recognised something of his own quality in her. At any
rate, she would stand up to him. She would not be "a silly miss."

"Of course, you have surprised me very much," she said, with an effort
at even speech, which probably came to him as hurried prattle. "I can't
say what I suppose you want me to say at once. But if you will give me
time--if you will speak to my father----"

He broke in on her. "Good heavens!" he said, with a laugh. "You don't
think I've got time for all that sort of thing, do you?--orange flowers
and church bells and all the rest of it. Don't you say a word to your
father, or any one else. Do you hear?"

His roughness nerved her. "Then what do you want me to do?" she asked
boldly.

"Do? Why, come to London and marry me, of course. You've got the pluck.
Or if you haven't, you're not what I thought you, and I don't want you
at all. There's no time to settle anything now, and I'm off to-morrow.
If I stay longer, and come over here again with Graham, they will
suspect something. Meet me to-night out here--this very spot, do you
see? I'll get out of the house and be over here at two o'clock. Then
I'll tell you what to do."

They had come to a little clearing, the entrance to a strip of planted
ground which led to a gate in