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 his kisses; as she did. Not all her will could obliterate those moments.

Bareheaded, he stood in the path before her and every least detail of her sunlit face was his. The barrier in his heart, and in hers, was down, and his senses were unafraid of her. A bitter ecstasy filled his heart.

She spoke to him. 'I have asked you to come. It is not for my sake. It is for your wife. I love her. For her sake I ask you to pursue me no longer.'

It was a strangely worded request.

'I've not pursued you,' said Graham. Old Médor, lying beside the bench in the sun, lifted his head as he heard his voice and uttered a low, uncertain growl. 'Not unless you call this morning pursuit. All the rest has been chance. You know it.'

'I do not know it,' said Mademoiselle Ludérac, and he was now to hear how fierce, under its quiet, her voice could be. 'You came before in the morning, when you were sure of finding me. You came to seek me on the island—though you had no need to give me the message. You have pursued me from the first, and though it was by chance that you found your way to my room the other night, it was not by chance that you entered and insulted me.'

'No—no;—you can't say that. That's unworthy of you;—unworthy of us both,' Graham muttered, eyeing her. 'Even then you understood. Even then you forgave; because you longed for me as much as I longed for you.'

Marthe Ludérac's face took on an arctic pallor. 'I