to the last
ditch--I should be deeply grateful for the privilege.'

'Thanks,' she said simply, and placing her hand in his, let it remain
there.

The hot blood of his impressionable nature mounted to his cheeks, and
his heart was aflame with a sudden intoxication of desire. But
chivalry told him how much it had cost this girl, whose whole being
rebelled at the thought of being physically conquered, to show such a
mark of confidence. And reason warned him that any triumph he might
obtain would be only for the moment. He watched the flight of a hawk
in the sky--and his lips were parched and hot.

'For a long time,' she said, 'I have had a growing sensation of
suffocation in life. It's stifling me. When I look ahead and see
nothing but this kind of life--visiting, visiting, entertaining,
entertaining, listening to that endless talk in London--well, I think I
understand why some women go to the devil. At least there's something
genuine about sin.'

A rabbit leaped from a bush opposite as though it bad seen something
terrifying, and scampered madly across the field to some burrowed
refuge by a great oak. Selwyn felt the hand in his tighten
convulsively.

'Look!' she cried. 'Austin--look!'

Her face blanched with sudden alarm. He sprang to his feet.

'What is it?' he cried.

'The bush--there--where the rabbit darted out.'

He looked at the spot indicated by her trembling hand, but the
dwindling sunlight had just passed it, and he could see nothing but a
clump of shrubbery.

'It was a man,' she said, her voice shaking querulously. 'I saw his
face. He was crouching there and watching us.'

Selwyn frowned. 'Some poacher fellow,' he said, 'that's all. At any
rate, I'll make sure.'

He started for the bush, when, with a tearful laugh, she stopped him,
her hands clinging to his arm.

'No--no,' she said swiftly, 'it's nothing. It was just my nerves.
There is no one there. The rabbit startled me.'

He hesitated momentarily, then, turning to her, gripped her arms with
his hands. A great feeling of pity for the high-strung girl welled up
in him, and he wished that it were possible to impart some of his own
strength to her. 'Elise,' he began hoarsely, his whole being in a
cloud of passion through which his brain slashed its lightning shafts
of warning--'Elise'----

The hall gong, growing in a clamant intensity, rang out on the quiet
air. With the lightness of a fawn she released herself from his g