h him, she might have
been able to change this base view of life--she could have elevated
him."

Sabine shook her head.

"No, she was too young and too inexperienced, and he had broken all her
ideals, absolutely stunned and annihilated her whole vista of the
future. There was no other way but flight. She had to reconstruct her
soul alone."

"You do not ask me what became of the owner of Arranstoun--or what he
did with his life."

"I know he went to China--but the matter does not interest me. There he
probably continued to live and to kill other things--to seize what he
wanted and get some physical joy out of existence as usual."

A look of pain now quenched the fire.

"You are very cruel," he said.

"The owner of Arranstoun was very cruel."

"He knows it and is deeply repentant; but he was and is only a very
ordinary man."

"No, a savage."

"A savage then, if you will--and one dangerous to provoke too far;" the
fire blazed again. "And what do you suppose your friend learned in those
five years of men--after she had ceased to exist as the owner of
Arranstoun knew her?"

Sabine laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound.

"Of men! That they are like children, desiring only the toys that are
out of reach, wasting their souls upon what they cannot obtain and
valuing not at all the gifts of the gods which are in their own
possession."

"What a cynical view!"

"Is it not a true one?"

"Perhaps--in some cases--in mine certainly; only I have generally
managed to obtain what I wanted."

"Then it may be a new experience for you to find there was one thing
which was out of your reach."

He bent forward eagerly and asked, with a catch in his breath:

"And that was----?"

"The soul of a woman--shall we say--that something which no brute force
can touch."

The fencing bout was over, the foils were laid aside, and grim earnest
was in Michael's voice now--modulated by civilization into that tone
which does not carry beyond one's neighbor at a dinner party.

"Your soul--Sabine--that is the only thing which interests me, and I was
never able to touch your soul? That is not true, as you know--How dare
you say it to me. There was one moment----"

"Hush," she whispered, growing very white. "You must not--you shall not
speak to me so. You had no right to come here. No right to talk to me at
all--it is traitorous--we are both traitors to Lord Fordyce, who is a
noble gentleman above suspecting us of such wiles