arms. This was unbearable--and before he was aware of it he found he was
clenching his fists in rage, and that Binko was sitting on his haunches,
blinking at him, with his head on one side in his endeavors to
understand.

Michael pulled himself together and laughed bitterly aloud.

"I must just never think of it, old man," he told the dog, "or I shall
go mad."

Then he sat down again. With what poignant regret he looked back upon
his original going to China! If only he had stayed and gone after her,
that next day, and seized her again, and brought her back here to this
room--they would have had five years of happiness. She was sweeter now
far than she had been then, and he could have watched her developing,
instead of her coming to perfection all alone. That under these
circumstances she might never have acquired that polish of mind, and
strange dignity and reserve of manner which was one of her greatest
attractions, did not strike him--as it has been plainly said, he was not
given to analysis in his judgment of things.

"I wish she had had a baby, Binko," he remarked, when once more seated
in his chair. "Then she would have been obliged to return at once of her
own accord."

Binko grunted and slobbered his acquiescence and sympathy, with his wise
old fat head poked into his master's arm.

"You are trying to tell me that as I had gone off to China, she couldn't
have done that in any case, you old scoundrel. And of course you are
right. But she did not try to, you know. There was no letter from her
among the hundreds which were waiting for me at Hong Kong--or here when
I got back. She could have sent me a cable, and I would have returned
like a shot from anywhere. But she did not want me then; she wanted to
be free--and now, when she does, her hands are already tied. The whole
cursed thing is her own fault, and that is what is the biggest pain, old
dog."

Then his thoughts wandered back to their scene in Rose Forster's
sitting-room--that was pleasure indeed! And he leaned back in his big
chair and let himself dream. He could hear her words telling him that
she loved him and could feel her soft lips pressed in passion to his
own.

"My God! I can't bear it," he cried at last, once more clenching his
hands.

* * * * *

And so it went on through days and nights of anguish, the aspects of the
case repeating themselves in endless persistence, until with all his
will and his strong