ope," he said.

"No, not to thank you." She paused an instant, and seemed to hesitate.
"I--I really want to ask you something," she said at length.

He reached up and removed her hand from his shoulder.

"Well?" he questioned.

"Don't hold me at arms' length!" she pleaded gently. "It makes things so
difficult."

"What is it you want to know?" he asked without relaxing.

She stood silent for a few seconds as if summoning all her courage. Then
at length, her voice very low, she spoke.

"When you said that you wanted me for your wife, did you mean that
you--loved me?"

He made an abrupt movement, and his fingers closed tightly upon her
wrist. For a moment or more he sat in tense silence, then he got to his
feet.

"Why do you want to know?" he demanded harshly.

She stood before him with bent head.

"Because," she said, and there was a piteous quiver in her voice, "I am
lonely, and I have a very empty heart. And--and--if you love me it will
not frighten me to know it. It will only--make me--glad."

He put his hand on her shoulder. "Do you know what you are saying?" he
questioned.

"Yes," she said under her breath.

"Are you sure?" he persisted.

She raised her head impulsively, and, with a gesture most winning, most
confident, she stretched up her arms to him.

"Yes," she said. "I mean it! I mean it! I want--to be loved!"

His arms were close about her as she ended, and she uttered the last
words chokingly with her face against his breast. The effort had cost
her all her strength, and she clung to him panting, almost fainting,
while panic--wild, unreasoning panic--swept over her. What was this man
to whom she had thus impulsively given herself--this man whom all men
feared?

Nevertheless, she grew calmer at last, awaking to the fact that though
his hold was tense and passionate, he still retained his self-control.
She commanded herself, and turned her face upwards.

"Then you do love me?" she said tremulously.

His eyes shone into hers, red as the inner, intolerable glow of a
furnace. He did not attempt to make reply in words. He seemed at that
moment incapable of speech. He only bent and kissed her fiercely,
burningly, even brutally, upon the lips. And so she had her answer.

VII

It was a curious establishment over which Sybil found herself called
upon to preside. The native, Beelzebub, was her only domestic, and, as
Mercer had predicted, she found him very willing if not always
efficie