had again and again and
again!--and we did not know--we did not know! And yet--there were
moments--"

Dry-lipped he looked at her, and dry of eye and lip she raised her head
and stared at him--through him--far beyond at the twin ghosts floating
under the tropic stars locked fast in their first embrace.

Then she rose, blindly, covering her face with her hands, and he
stumbled to his feet, shrinking back from her--because dead fires were
flickering again, and the ashes of dead roses stirred above the scented
embers--and the magic of all the East was descending like a veil upon
them, and the Phantom of the Past drew nearer, smiling, wide-armed,
crowned with living blossoms.

The tide rose, swaying her where she stood; her hands fell from her
face. Between them the grave they had dug seemed almost filled with
flowers now--was filling fast. And across it they looked at one another
as though stunned. Then his face paled and he stepped back, staring at
her from stern eyes.

"Phil," she faltered, bewildered by the mirage, "is it only a bad dream,
after all?" And as the false magic glowed into blinding splendour to
engulf them: "Oh, boy! boy!--is it hell or heaven where we've fallen--?"

There came a loud rapping at the door.

CHAPTER V

AFTERGLOW

"Phil," she wrote, "I am a little frightened. Do you suppose Boots
suspected who it was? I must have been perfectly mad to go to your rooms
that night; and we both were--to leave the door unlocked with the chance
of somebody walking in. But, Phil, how could I know it was the fashion
for your friends to bang like that and then come in without the excuse
of a response from you?

"I have been so worried, so anxious, hoping from day to day that you
would write to reassure me that Boots did not recognise me with my back
turned to him and my muff across my eyes.

"But scared and humiliated as I am I realise that it was well that he
knocked. Even as I write to you here in my own room, behind locked
doors, I am burning with the shame of it.

"But I am _not_ that kind of woman, Phil; truly, truly, I am not. When
the foolish impulse seized me I had no clear idea of what I wanted
except to see you and learn for myself what you thought about Gerald's
playing at my house after I had promised not to let him.

"Of course, I understood what I risked in going; I realised what common
interpretation might be put upon what I was doing. But ugly as it might
appear to anybody exce