was facing her in the darkness.

"Then at last you were overtaken by your tragedy, and she showed you her
cruelty and cast you out. From that moment I was resolved some day
to let you know how much I cared. I wanted you in your misery. But I
waited. I had a conviction that you would come to me, drawn, without
suspecting it, by what I felt for you. Well, you came at last. And now
you ask me whether you are one of many."

"Forgive me!" he whispered.

"But of course I shall always forgive you for everything. Women who care
for men always do that. They can't help themselves. And you--will you
forgive me for my lies?"

He took her in his arms.

"Life's full of them. Only don't tell me any more, and make me forget if
you can. You've got so much will. Try to have the power for that."

"Then help me. Give yourself wholly to me. You have struggled against me
furtively. You thought I didn't know it, but I did. You look back to the
old ways. And that is madness. Turn a new page, Dion. Have the courage
to hope."

"To--hope!"

Her hot hands closed on him fiercely.

"You shall hope. I'll make you. Cut out the cancer that is in you, and
cut away all that is round it. Then you'll have health again. She never
knew how to feel in the great human way. She was too fond of God ever to
care for a man."

Let that be the epitaph over the tomb in which all his happiness was
buried.

In silence he made his decision, and Cynthia Clarke knew it.

The darkness covered them.

* * * * *

Down below in the Villa Hafiz Jimmy was sleeping peacefully, tired by
the long ride to and from the forest in the heat. He had gone to bed
very early, almost directly after dinner. His mother had not advised
this. Perhaps indeed, if she had not been secretly concentrated on
herself and her own desires that evening, she would have made Jimmy stay
up till at least half-past ten, even though he was "jolly sleepy."
He had slept for at least two hours in the forest. She ought to have
remembered that, but she had forgotten it, and when, at a quarter to
nine, on an enormous yawn, Jimmy had announced that he thought he would
"turn in and get between the sheets," she had almost eagerly acquiesced.
She wanted her boy asleep, soundly asleep that night. When the clock had
struck nine he had already traveled beyond the land of dreams.

The night was intensely hot and airless. No breath of wind came from the
sea. Drops of perspiration stood on the boy's forehe