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 him, and she had moved back as she spoke, till she reached the door. Her hand was on the latch now, as if indeed she was leaving him for ever. He eyed her from across the room. 'You can't go to-day,' he said. 'The car's broken down.'

Jill leaned back against the door and a look of bewilderment crossed her face.

'The car's broken,' Graham repeated, heavily. 'And everything's flooded.'

'To-morrow, then,' Jill muttered.

'To-morrow? Well; we'll see.' He eyed her strangely. 'You'd have to accept it, Jill, you know.'

'Accept what?'

'If she won't consent to come with me; but if she will consent to love me. You'd have to accept it; if she did.'

There drifted across Jill's mind the memory of a phrase that she had heard that morning; words that Marthe had spoken to her in the wood—was it only that morning when it seemed years ago?—'Love need not be light to know itself measured. What is more grave than to be doomed to part?' Even Dick did not know Marthe as she did. Even Dick did not understand the doom that rested upon Marthe. And this was why she had come to Buissac; this was why she had not turned away from the spellbound house. As if in a dream, she saw it all and felt herself armed with the power of the embracing vision.

'I will never accept it,' she said. 'Never; for Marthe. You must belong to each other—for life. You must make her happy. You must live for her; not only love