called a sharp warning in her soul. There
was about him an unrestraint, a lawlessness, that turned her relief
into misgiving. She put up a quick hand, checking him.

"Guy--Guy, you are hurting me!"

He relaxed his hold then, looking at her, his head back, the old
boyish triumph shining in his eyes. "Little sweetheart, I'm sorry.
I couldn't help it--just for the moment. The sight of you and the
touch of you together just turned my head. But it's all right.
Don't look so scared! I wouldn't harm a single hair of your
precious little head." He gathered up the long plait of her hair
and kissed it passionately.

She laid a trembling hand against his shoulder. "Guy, please! You
mustn't. I had to let you in. But not--not for this."

He uttered a low laugh that seemed to hold a note of triumph. But
he let her go.

"Of course you had to let me in! Were you asleep? Did I frighten
you?"

"You startled me just at first. I think the thunder had set me on
edge, for I wasn't asleep. It's such a--savage sort of night,
isn't it?"

Sylvia glanced forth again over the low _veldt_ where the
flickering lightning leaped from cloud to cloud.

"Not so bad," said Guy. "It will serve our turn all right. Do you
know what I have come for?"

She looked back at him quickly. There was no mistaking the
exultation in his low voice. It amazed her, and again she was
stabbed by that sense of insecurity.

"I thought you had come to--explain things," she made answer. "And
to say--good-bye."

"To say--what?" He took her by the shoulders; his dark eyes
flashed a laughing challenge into hers. "You're not in earnest!"
he said.

She backed away from him. "But I am, Guy. I am." Her voice
sounded strained even to herself, for she was strangely discomfited
by his attitude. She had expected a broken man kneeling at her
feet in an agony of contrition. His overweening confidence
confounded her. "Have you no sense of right and wrong left?" she
said.

He kept his hands upon her. "None whatever," he told her
recklessly. "The only thing in life that counts is you--just you.
Because we love each other, the whole world is ours for the taking.
No, listen, darling! I'm not talking rot. Do you remember the
last time we were together? How I swore I would conquer--for your
sake? Well,--I've done it. I have conquered. Now that that devil
Kieff is dead, there is no reason why I shouldn't keep straight
always. And so I have