t impulse swept her to anchor her craft
for life in a safe harbor. She had tried rebellion, and that had left
her spent and beaten. What she wanted now was safety, a rest from the
turmoil of emotion.

"Do you still ... want me?" she asked lifelessly.

He could not on the instant take her meaning. Then, "Want you!" he
cried in a low voice no words could have expressed fully. "Want you? Oh,
my dear!"

"You know I don't love you ... not in one way," she told him naively.
"Lady Jim says that will come. I don't know. Perhaps you won't want to
take the risk."

She could see the desire of her leap to his honest eyes. "By God, I'll
take my chance," he cried.

"You'll give me all the time I want--not push me too hard?"

"You shall set your own time."

Her dusky head was leaning wearily against the back of a wicker porch
chair. From sheer fatigue her eyes fluttered shut. Her lover could see
the round bird-like throat swell as she swallowed the lump that had
gathered. Pity for her and love of her rose in him like a flood. He
would have given anything to wrap her in his arms and fight away her
troubles. But he knew it would be months before he could win the right
to do this.

"Would you mind if ... if we didn't tell the others just yet?"

"It shall be as you say, Moya, dear."

She nodded languid thanks. "You're good. I ... I think I'll go to bed.
I'm so tired."

He kissed the tips of her fingers and she vanished round the corner of
the house.

Kilmeny sat down again and looked for long across the moonlit river.
His sweetheart had promised to marry him, but in how strange a fashion.
He was to be her husband some day, but he was not yet her lover by a
good deal. His imagination fitted another man to that role, and there
rose before him the strong brown face of his cousin with its mocking
eyes and devil-may-care smile.

His promised wife! He had despaired of winning her, and she had crept to
him as a hurt child does to its mother. There was no exultation in his
heart. Poor child! How sad and tired her eyes had been.

CHAPTER VIII

THE BAD PENNY AGAIN

Verinder strolled down to the river bank, where Joyce was fishing from
the shore in a tentative fashion.

"I say, Miss Seldon, aren't you breaking the Sabbath?" he asked from the
bank above, smiling down upon her with an attempt at archness.

She flashed at him over her shoulder a smile that had all the allure of
lovely youth. "I'm only bending it. I have