McDowell, primarily a fighter of
his own battles, cautious and suspicious, had faith in him while he
waited for Shan Tung. It was this blind belief in him that depressed
him more than all else, for he knew that victory for himself must be
based more or less on deceit and treachery. For the first time he heard
Miriam laugh with Mary Josephine; he saw the gold and the brown head
together out in the sun; he saw her face shining with a light that he
had never seen there before, and then, when he came upon them, their
faces were turned to him, and his heart bled even as he smiled and held
out his hands to Mary Josephine. They trusted him, and he was a liar, a
hypocrite, a Pharisee.

On the ninth day he had finished supper with Mary Josephine when the
telephone rang. He rose to answer it. It was Miriam Kirkstone.

"He has returned," she said.

That was all. The words were in a choking voice. He answered and hung
up the receiver. He knew a change had come into his face when he turned
to Mary Josephine. He steeled himself to a composure that drew a
questioning tenseness into her face. Gently he stroked her soft hair,
explaining that Shan Tung had returned and that he was going to see
him. In his bedroom he strapped his Service automatic under his coat.

At the door, ready to go, he paused. Mary Josephine came to him and put
her hands to his shoulders. A strange unrest was in her eyes, a
question which she did not ask.

Something whispered to him that it was the last time. Whatever happened
now, tonight must leave him clean. His arms went around her, he drew
her close against his breast, and for a space he held her there,
looking into her eyes.

"You love me?" he asked softly.

"More than anything else in the world," she whispered.

"Kiss me, Mary Josephine."

Her lips pressed to his.

He released her from his arms, slowly, lingeringly.

After that she stood in the lighted doorway, watching him, until he
disappeared in the gloom of the slope. She called good-by, and he
answered her. The door closed.

And he went down into the valley, a hand of foreboding gripping at his
heart.

XX

With a face out of which all color had fled, and eyes filled with the
ghosts of a new horror, Miriam Kirkstone stood before Keith in the big
room in the house on the hill.

"He was here--ten minutes," she said, and her voice was as if she was
forcing it out of a part of her that was dead and cold. It was
lifeless, emotionl