r refusal.

"Then," said Merriman resolutely, "I will go back with you now and see
Mr. Coburn, and we will talk over what is to be done."

At this her eyes dilated with terror.

"No, no!" she cried again. "He would be in danger. He would try
something that might offend the others, and his life might not be safe.
I tell you I don't trust Captain Beamish and Mr. Bulla. I don't think
they would stop at anything to keep their secret. He is trying to get
out of it, and he must not be hurried. He will do what he can."

"But, my dearest," Merriman remonstrated, "it could do no harm, to talk
the matter over with him. That would commit him to nothing."

But she would not hear of it.

"If he thought my happiness depended on it," she declared, "he would
break with them at all costs. I could not risk it. You must go away. Oh,
my dear, you must go. Go, go!" she entreated almost hysterically, "it
will be best for us both."

Merriman, though beside himself with suffering, felt he could no longer
disregard her.

"I shall go," he answered sadly, "since you require it, but I will never
give you up. Not until one of us is dead or you marry someone else--I
will never give you up. Oh, Madeleine, have pity and give me some hope;
something to keep me alive till this trouble is over."

She was beginning to reply when she stopped suddenly and stood
listening.

"The lorry!" she cried. "Go! Go!" Then pointing wildly in the direction
of the road, she turned and fled rapidly back towards the clearing.

Merriman gazed after her until she passed round a corner of the lane
and was lost to sight among the trees. Then, with a weight of hopeless
despair on his heart, he began to walk towards the road. The lorry,
driven by Henri, passed him at the next bend, and Henri, though he
saluted with a show of respect, smiled sardonically as he noted the
other's woebegone appearance.

But Merriman neither knew nor cared what the driver thought. Almost
physically sick with misery and disappointment, he regained his taxi and
was driven back to Bordeaux.

The next few days seemed to him like a nightmare of hideous reality
and permanence. He moved as a man in a dream, living under a shadow of
almost tangible weight, as a criminal must do who has been sentenced to
early execution. The longing to see Madeleine again, to hear the sound
of her voice, to feel her presence, was so intense as to be almost
unendurable. Again and again he said to himself that h