o his impetuous
pleading. "If you will not see me again until I may think it all out--"

But there was danger in waiting. A hot appeal flashed in Ronador's
eyes and eloquently again he fell to pleading.

But Diane had caught the clatter of the music-machine up the road where
Philip was good-humoredly unwinding the hullabaloo for a crowd of
gleeful young darkies, and suddenly she turned very white and stern.

"No! No!" she said. "It must be as I said."

And presently, with faith in his poisoned arrows Ronador went, pledged
to await her summons.

Diane sat very still beneath the cedars, with the noise of the
music-machine wild torture to her ears.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE MOON ABOVE THE MARSH

The moon silvered the marsh and the creek. Off to the east rippled a
silent, moon-white stretch of sea, infinitely lonely, murmuring in the
star-cool night.

Restless and wakeful Diane watched the stream glide endlessly on, each
reed and pebble silvered. Rex lay on the bank beside her, whither he
had followed faithfully a very long while ago, snapping at the insects
which rose from the grass. So colorless and fixed was the face of his
mistress that it seemed a beautiful graven thing devoid of life.

Now presently as Diane stared at the moon-lit pebbles glinting at her
feet, a shadow among the cedars, having advanced and retreated
uncertainly a score of times before, suddenly detached itself from the
wavering stencil of tree and bush upon the moonlit ground and resolved
itself into the figure of a tall, determined sentinel who approached
and seated himself beside her.

"What's wrong?" begged Philip gently. "I've been watching you for
hours, Diane, and you've scarcely moved an inch."

"Nothing," said Diane. But her voice was so lifeless, her lack of
interest in Philip's sudden appearance so pointed, that he glanced
keenly at her colorless face and frowned.

"There is something, I'm sure," he insisted kindly. "You look it."
Finding that she did not trouble to reply, he produced his wildwood
pipe and fell to smoking.

"Likely I'll stay here," said Philip quietly, "until you tell me.
Surely you know, Diane, that in anything in God's world that concerns
you, I stand ready to help you if you need me."

It was manfully spoken but Diane's lips faintly curled. Philip's fine
frank face colored hotly and he looked away.

In silence they sat there, Philip smoking restlessly and wondering,
Diane staring at the cre