o tell me that this
is your final decision?"

She bowed her head. With a sudden strong movement, he flung his arms
round her and clasped her in an embrace, as fierce and revengeful as the
sweep of the wind which sends great trees crashing to the ground, and
ships to the bottom of the sea.

"You don't love me?" he enquired.

"Let me go, let me go--coward--madman!"

"You don't love me?" he repeated.

"I _hate_ you--let me go!"

"If this is the last time----"

"I wish I could _kill_ you!"

"Ah, that is the sort of woman I like!"

"You make me know what it is to feel like a murderess!"

"And to look like one, by heaven!"

She wrenched herself away, with a furious effort.

"Coward!" she cried. "I did right to mistrust you!"

Little Martha ran up and offered her a wild heartsease which she had
found on one of the graves. Hadria, trembling and white, stooped
instinctively to take the flower, and as she did so, the whole
significance of the afternoon's revelation broke over her, with fresh
intensity. His child!

He stood watching her, with malice in his eyes.

"Come, come, Martha, let us go, let us go," she cried, feverishly.

He moved backwards along the path, as they advanced.

"I have to thank you for bestowing a mother's care on my poor child. You
can suppose what a joy the thought has been to me all along."

Hadria flushed.

"You need not thank me," she answered. "As you know, I did it first for
her mother's sake, and out of hatred to you, unknown as you then were to
me. Now I will do it for her own sake, and out of hatred to you,
bitterer than ever."

She stooped to take the child's hand.

"You are most kind, but I could not think of troubling you any longer. I
think of taking the little one myself. She will be a comfort to me, and
will cheer my lonely home. And besides you see, duty, Mrs. Temperley,
duty----"

Hadria caught her breath, and stopped short.

"You are going to take her away from me? You are going to revenge
yourself like that?"

"You have made me feel my responsibilities towards my child, as I fear I
did not feel them before. I am powerless, of course, to make up for the
evil I have done her, but I can make some reparation. I can take her to
live with me; I can give her care and attention, I can give her a good
education. I have made up my mind."

Hadria stood before him, white as the gravestone.

"You said that vengeance was futile. So it is. Leave the child to me.
She sh