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202 drew a long breath of relief. He looked back upon his long hours of anxiety, and cursed himself for a fool.

"What an idiot I have been!" he declared. "Of course, I know that you lost a brother in South Africa. But—but what about Madame de Melbain?"

"Madame de Melbain and my brother were friends," she said quietly. "There were obstacles or they would have been more than friends."

Wrayson nodded.

"Now supposing," he said, "that, by some miracle, your brother still lived, that this was he, is there any reason why he should avoid you both?"

She thought for a moment.

"Yes!" she said slowly, "there is."

"I suppose," he continued tentatively, "you couldn't tell me all about it?"

"I couldn't," she answered. "It isn't my secret."

Wrayson looked for a moment away from her, across the valley with its flower-spangled meadows, parted by that sinuous poplar-fringed line of silver, the lazy, slow-flowing river stealing through the quiet land to the sea. The full summer heat was scarcely yet in the air, but already a faint blue haze was rising from the lowlands. Up on the plateau, where they were sitting, a slight breeze stirred amongst the trees; Monsieur Jules had indeed some ground for his pride in this tiny sylvan paradise.

"I think," he said, "that for one day we will forget all this tangle of secrets and unaccountable doings. What do you say, Louise?" he whispered, taking her unresisting hand into his. "May I tell Monsieur Jules to serve breakfast for two in the arbour there?"

She laughed softly into his face. There was the look