gure, singing as the streams do over the pebbles, and
he could not forget. When in those places where women are beautiful,
gracious and soulless, he saw that life can be made into mere convention
and be governed by a code, he said that he had learned how to forget; but
a pale young figure rose before him with the simple reproach of falsehood,
and he knew that he should always remember.

She stood before him now. Maybe some premonition--some such smother at
the heart as Hamlet knew--came to him then, made him almost statue-like in
his quiet and filled his face with a kind of tragical beauty. Hagar saw it
and was struck by it. If he had known Jack Gladney and how he worshiped
this man, he would have understood the cause of the inspiration. It was
all the matter of a moment. Then Mark Telford stepped down, still
uncovered, and came to them. He did not offer his hand, but bowed gravely
and said, "I hardly expected to meet you here, Mrs. Detlor, but I am very
glad."

He then bowed to Hagar.

Mrs. Detlor bowed as gravely and replied in an enigmatical tone, "One is
usually glad to meet one's countrymen in a strange land."

"Quite so," he said, "and it is far from Tellavie."'

"It is not so far as it was yesterday," she added.

At that they began to walk toward the garden leading to the cloisters.
Hagar wondered whether Mrs. Detlor wished to be left alone with Telford.
As if divining his thoughts, she looked up at him and answered his mute
question, following it with another of incalculable gentleness.

Raising his hat, he said conventionally enough: "Old friends should have
much to say to each other. Will you excuse me?"

Mrs. Detlor instantly replied in as conventional a tone: "But you will
not desert me? I shall be hereabout, and you will take me back to the
coach?"

The assurance was given, and the men bowed to each other. Hagar saw a
smile play ironically on Telford's face--saw it followed by a steellike
fierceness in the eye. He replied to both in like fashion, but one would
have said the advantage was with Telford--he had the more remarkable
personality.

The two were left alone. They passed through the cloisters without a word.
Hagar saw the two figures disappear down the long vista of groined arches.
"I wish to heaven I could see how this will all end," he muttered. Then he
joined Baron and Mildred Margrave.

Telford and Mrs. Detlor passed out upon a little bridge spanning the
stream, still not speaking. A