ds were wild and desolate in spots though skirted by
smooth road-ways and flanked by handsome estates they had for the most
part uninterrupted solitude. Ragged outcroppings of rock stood baldly
etched against the brilliant sky and through the open spaces they
occasionally saw the Hudson and the contour of upper New York. Twice
they came upon rouged and powdered men and women with beaded lashes, but
these men and women were too busy doing varied things before cameras to
take notice of them, for their refuge was also the open-air workshop of
moving-picture folk.

"Of course you must go," Edwardes seriously told her. "Your mother's
health--her life itself--may depend on it. You aren't the sort who can
hesitate to answer such a call and it won't be forever, you know."

"And while I'm--over there--with an ocean between us"--she broke off and
her eyes darkened with terror--"you may be facing a decisive battle
here--a battle decisive for both of us. If you have to fight, it's my
right to be near you--to share your fortunes and your misfortunes. Our
love didn't begin as little loves do. It sha'n't end that way."

"If I thought--" his voice was very deep in its earnestness--"that
anything could mean an end of our love, I couldn't make a fight whether
you were here or elsewhere. I think our love will outlast all battles. I
want you to go."

"And if I do go," she demanded with a gaze of questioning which demanded
a truthful answer, "will you swear, by whatever is holiest and means
most to you, that you will cable me at the first intimation of storm?"

For a while he stood silent and his features were trouble-stamped; then
he took both her hands and their eyes met. Slowly he bowed his assent.
"I swear it," he told her, "by my love for you, but if I read the signs
aright the time is not quite that close at hand."

In these days Hamilton Burton's secret service was preternaturally
active. Less of the Titan's affairs passed through the hands of Carl
Bristoll. He could be implicitly trusted, but called on only for honest
service. More went through Tarring and Ruferton and Hendricks--who
questioned no motives.

After two months Mary returned, and when she met the gaze of Jefferson
Edwardes she read in it the struggle which his fight against his heart's
clamorous insistence had cost him. "I have thought of little else since
I went away," she told him, "and I have decided that either I am worthy
to stand with you in whatever comes