id.

She put out all her strength to make the word clear and absolute, and
repeated: 'No.'

His face grew radiant; he caught her in his arms suddenly and kissed her,
once, twice.

'O my sister!' he cried, 'my dear sister!'

She did not blush under his kisses: she shut her eyes and held her breath
when his eager embrace caught her out of resistance. But when it
slackened she thrust him back with all her might, broke free, and with a
low cry fled away to find solitude, where she might sob and sob, and
wrestle out her agony, and tear her heart with a name--that strange
name, that woman's name, 'Diadyomene.'

She had his secret, she only, though it was nought but a name and some
love titles and passionate entreaties that his ravings had given into her
safe keeping.

On the morrow Christian's boat lay idle by the quay. Before dawn moved he
had gone.

'I think--I think you need not fear for him,' said Rhoda, when the day
closed without him. 'I think he may be back to-morrow.'

'You know what he is about--where he has gone, child?'

First she said 'Yes,' and then she said 'No.'

In the dusk she crept up to Giles. Against his breast she broke into
pitiful weeping.

'Forgive me! forgive me! I said "No" to him.'

CHAPTER X

With its splendour and peace unalterable, the great sanctuary enclosed
them.

Face to face they stood, shattered life and lost soul. Diadyomene tried
to smile, but her lips trembled; she tried to greet him with the old name
Diadyomenos, but it fell imperfect. And his grey eyes addressed her too
forcibly to be named. What was in them and his face to make her afraid?
eyes and face of a lover foredoing speech.

The eager, happy trouble of the boy she had beguiled flushed out no more;
nay, but he paled; earnest, sad, indomitable, the man demanded of her
answering integrity. Uncomprehended, the mystery of pain in embodied
power stood confronting the magic of the sea, and she quailed.

'Agonistes, Agonistes!' she panted, 'now I find your name: it is
Agonistes!'

But while he did not answer, her old light came to her for reading the
tense inquiry of his eyes. Did they demand acknowledgment of her defeat
and his supremacy? No, she would not own that; he should not know.

'And have you feared to keep what you got of the sea? And have you flung
it away, as I counselled when last you beheld me?'

The strong, haggard face never altered for contest. He asked slowly:

'Was it a vision of D