nd looked back. "Sylvia!" he said.

She went to him. He put his hand through her arm and drew her into
the passage. "Don't let Guy have any more to drink!" he said.
"Mind, I leave him to you."

He spoke with urgency; she looked at him in surprise.

"Yes, I mean it," he said. "You must prevent him somehow. I
can't--nor Kelly either. You probably can--for a time anyhow."

"I'll do my best," she said.

His hand closed upon her. "If you fail, he'll go under, I know the
signs. It's up to you to stop him. Go back and see to it!"

He almost pushed her from him with the words, and it came to her
that for some reason Guy's welfare was uppermost with him just
then. He had never betrayed any anxiety on his account before, and
she wondered greatly at his attitude. But it was no time for
questioning. Mutely she obeyed him and went back.

She found Guy in the act of filling a glass for Kelly. His own
stood empty at his elbow. She went forward quickly, and laid her
hand on his shoulder. "Guy, please!" she said,

He looked at her, the bottle in his hand. In his eyes she saw
again that dreadful leaping flame which made her think of some
starved and desperate animal. "What is it?" he said.

An overwhelming sense of her own futility came upon her. She felt
almost like a child standing there, attempting that of which Burke
had declared himself to be incapable.

"What is it?" he said again.

She braced herself for conflict. "Please," she said gently. "I
want you to wait and have some tea. It won't take long to get."
Then, as the fever of his eyes seemed to burn her: "Please, Guy!
Please!"

Kelly put aside his own drink untouched. "There's no refusing such
a sweet appeal as that," he declared gallantly. "Guy, I move a
postponement. Tea first!"

But Guy was as one who heard not. He was staring at Sylvia, and
the wild fire in his eyes was leaping higher, ever higher. In that
moment he saw her, and her alone. It was as if they two had
suddenly met in a place that none other might enter. His words of
the morning rushed back upon her--his passionate declaration that
life was not long enough for sacrifice--that the future to which
she looked was but a mirage which she would never reach.

It all flashed through her brain in a few short seconds, vivid,
dazzling, overwhelming, and the memory of Kieff went with it--Kieff
and his cold, sinister assertion that she held Guy's destiny
between her hands.

Th