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276 leave him for ten minutes; even though he waked, it could not harm him to await her return at the end of that scant period.

She crept from the room, closed the door silently, ran down the hall, and descended by a back way, a little used staircase, to the lower hall, which was to be the scene of the marriage.

Constructed in imitation of an old Spanish Mission chapel, it contained one of the finest organs in the world; at this close range its deep-throated tones vied with the warnings of the storm. Judith, lurking in a passageway whose open door revealed the altar steps and chancel, was shaken to the very marrow of her being by the majestic reverberations of the music.

Since they had regained contact with civilization in a section of the country where the Law estate had vast holdings of land, the chapel was thronged with men and women who had known Alan's father and wished to honour his son. ...

Above stairs, in the room Judith had quitted, Seneca Trine opened both eyes wide and laughed a silent laugh of savage triumph when the door closed behind his daughter. At last he was left to his own devices, and at a time the most fitting imaginable for what he had in mind.

With a grin. Trine raised both arms and stretched them wide apart. Then, grasping the arms of his