w a little more
rigid, and a strange light gleamed in his eyes. But the hand which he
had laid on Carlyon's arm to draw him towards Lady Meltoun suddenly
tightened like a band of iron, till the artist nearly cried out with
pain.

"Let go my arm, for God's sake, man!" he said in a low tone, "and I will
take you to her."

"I am ready," Mr. Maddison answered quietly. "Ah! I see where she is.
You need not come."

He crossed the room, absolutely heedless of more than one attempt to
stop him. Mr. Carlyon watched him, and then with a sore heart bade his
hostess farewell, and hurried away. He was generous enough to help
another man to his happiness, but he could not stay and watch it.

CHAPTER XVII

BERNARD MADDISON AND HELEN THURWELL

And so it was in Lady Meltoun's drawing-room that they met again, after
those few minutes in the pine plantation which had given color and
passion to her life, and which had formed an epoch in his. Neither were
unmindful of the fact that if they were not exactly the centre of
observation, they were still liable to it in some degree, and their
greeting was as conventional as it well could have been. After all, she
thought, why should it be otherwise? There had never a word of love
passed between them--only those few fateful moments of tragic intensity,
when all words and thoughts had been merged in a deep reciprocal
consciousness which nothing could have expressed.

He stood before her, holding her hand in his for a moment longer than
was absolutely necessary, and looking at her intently. It was a gaze
from which she did not shrink, more critical than passionate, and when
he withdrew his eyes he looked away from her with a sigh.

"You have been living!" he said. "Tell me all about it!"

She moved her skirts to make room for him by her side.

"Sit down!" she said, "and I will try."

He obeyed, but when she tried to commence and tell him all that she had
felt and thought, she could not. Until that moment she scarcely
realized how completely her life had been moulded by his influence. It
was he who had first given her a glimpse of that new world of thought
and art, and almost epicurean culture into which she had made some
slight advance during his absence, and it was certain vague but sweet
recollections of him which had lived with her and flowed through her
life--a deep undercurrent of passion and poetry, throwing a golden halo
over all those new sensations--which had raised he