d at her with great tenderness.

"I knew," he said, "and I wondered--how I wondered--what you had come
for!"

"I only came to be a friend," she broke in hastily, "to--to try to help
you through your bad time."

"I guessed it must be that," he said softly over her bowed head, "when
you said 'No' to me yesterday."

"But you didn't tell me you cared," protested Molly.

"No," he said. "I was so horribly afraid that you might take me out of
pity, Molly."

"And I--I wasn't going to be second fiddle!" said Molly waywardly.

She resisted him a little as he turned her face upwards, but he had his
way. There was a quiver of laughter in his voice when he spoke again.

"You could never be that," he said. "You were made to lead the
orchestra. Still, tell me why you did it, darling! Make me understand!"

And Molly yielded at length with her arms about his neck.

"I loved you!" she said passionately. "I loved you!"

* * * * *

THE WOMAN OF HIS DREAM

PROLOGUE

It was growing very dark. The decks gleamed wet in the light of the
swinging lamps. The wind howled across the sea like a monster in
torment. It would be a fearful night.

The man who stood clutching at the slanting deck rail was drenched from
head to foot, but, despite this fact, he had no thought of going below.
Reginald Carey had been for many voyages on many seas, but the
fascination of a storm in the bay attracted him irresistibly still. He
had no sympathy with the uneasy crowd in the saloons. He even exulted in
the wild tumult of wind and sea and blinding rain. He was as one
spellbound in the grip of the tempest.

Curt and dry of speech, abrupt at times almost to rudeness, he was a man
of whom most people stood in awe, and with whom very few were on terms
of intimacy. Yet in the world of men he had made his mark.

By camp-fires and on the march, in prison and in hospital, Carey the
journalist had become a byword for coolness and endurance. It was
Carey, caustic of humour, uncompromising of attitude, who sauntered
through a hail of bullets to fill a wounded man's water-tin; Carey who
pushed his way among stampeding mules to rescue sorely needed medical
stores; Carey who had limped beside footsore, jaded men, and whistled
them out of their depression.

There were two fingers missing from Carey's left hand, and the limp had
become permanent when he sailed home from South Africa at the end of the
war, but he was t