im with her arms around him and her lips pressed to his.

"Dreaming?" he said slowly. "Dreaming? Was it all dreaming?"

He was looking straight into her eyes, as he spoke, forgetful of the
doctor's presence, watching for the return of the soft love-light which
had filled her eyes in that memoried scene. But no love-light shone from
them. They were unmoved, cold in their grey-blue depths almost to
hardness.

"Listen to me, my lad," the doctor said briskly. "The drive in from
Taloona shook you up a bit, they tell me. Made you delirious, so that
they had to keep you on the sofa all night watching you. That's where I
found you when I got here at dawn. But you'll be all right now, I fancy,
if you keep quiet and don't think about things that never happened.
You're at Waroona Downs in bed, and Mrs. Burke and that old idiot of a
doddering Irishman are looking after you. That's all you've got to
remember."

"Except to get well," Mrs. Burke added.

"Yes, except to get well; and I reckon your nurse will see to that. I'll
call in again to-morrow or the next day. But remember--no more dreams."

CHAPTER XIII

REVENGE IS SWEET

As the days wore on and Durham won his way back to health, he waited in
vain for a token from Mrs. Burke that the memory which persisted so
clearly was other than the figment of a dream.

Although she gave him every attention a sick man required, there was
neither look nor word from her to justify him in believing that the
memory was of an actual scene. For hours she would be with him, reading
to him, talking to him, meeting his glance freely and frankly; but never
was there the veriest hint of the emotion he had seen in her eyes on
that occasion.

Nor did he hear again the curious stifled cry which had seemed to ring
in his ears the night he arrived. He was constantly on the alert for it,
both by night and day, while he was confined to his room and later when
he was able to get out on to the verandah. But there was no repetition
of it, until at last he had perforce to accept the doctor's view and
regard it, as well as the other memory, as merely the vagaries of
delirium.

But if she gave him nothing whereon to feed the love he had for her,
that love did not diminish as the days passed. It took a deeper and
firmer hold upon him until he lived in a veritable Fool's Paradise,
giving no thought of the morrow, saving that it would be spent with her,
and forgetting even the task which had broug