ve
the--er--condemned--a kiss?"

She stooped and kissed him warmly, lifting her veil, and pressing her
cheek to his. The great arms held her tight an instant, then pushed her
somewhat roughly away.

"Go--there's a good girl--please go----" he said.

This going of Sophy was very different from the last time that he had
bidden her from him.

She went; and ten minutes later Nurse Harding came in again.

Her patient had turned his face to the wall and flung an arm over it.
She glanced at him curiously from time to time, busying herself here and
there about the room in her mouse-like way. Then she drew up the
prescribed dose of poison into the little glass and metal instrument,
and went over to the bed.

"I say, sir," she began, almost shyly for Nurse Harding. "I wouldn't
bother you, but it's time for your hypo----"

He did not stir. Anne blinked.

"Want to play 'good boy' and lengthen the time, sir?"

No answer and no movement. Anne went softly and laid the syringe on the
table. Then she came back. She stood for a moment, biting her sharp
little knuckles and staring down at the broad back. Then she burst out:

"Mrs. Chesney's told me, sir."

Again she broke off, and again burst forth.

"I--I always said you were an Old Sport.... Now I'll--I'll be hanged--if
you ain't the sportiest Old Sport as ever was!"

She spun on her heel, and went out, clacking the door most
unprofessionally. She went to have two minutes of what she called a
"good blub." It was Sophy's joy, together with Chesney's sudden
capitulation, that had upset Nurse Harding. She had become excessively
attached to Sophy, and, in spite of all his fundamental brutality, she
had a "soft spot" for her patient.

XXXII

The most extraordinary exhilaration came over Sophy from the moment that
the little Channel steamer cast off, and she heard the surge of the sea
about her and felt the keen tang of its breath upon her face: a sort of
light-hearted sense of adventure, of the romance of a lonely setting
forth for strange countries. Oddly enough she had never been either to
France or to Italy. Now she was going to both those famous lands, and
alone--her own courier--her own mistress. She felt what she had once
heard an excited child call "journey-proud." And the sense that Cecil
was in safe hands, was going of his own accord to a place where cure was
certain, left her conscience-free to revel in this sense of delicious
detachment. It was as if sh