se of peril. But would he help her? Would
he not rather side with that wretched traitor within her, crying out for
the old days--would he not still be the proud fool who would suffer no
man's law but his own? She shivered at the thought of his nearness--of
his momentous silence--of his treacherous ally.

She stirred in her chair to look in where Clytie bustled between kitchen
and dining-room. Her movement aroused him from his own abstraction. For
a breathless stretch of time she was frozen to inertness by sheer
terror. Would that old lawless spirit utter new blasphemies, giving
fearful point to them now? Would the old eager hand come again upon hers
with a boy's pleading and a man's power? And what of her own secret
guilt? She had cherished the memory of him and across space had
responded to him through that imperious need of her heart. Swiftly in
this significant moment she for the first time saw herself with critical
eyes--saw that in her fancied security she had unwittingly enthroned the
hidden traitor. More and more poignant grew her apprehension as she felt
his eyes upon her and divined that he was about to speak. With a little
steadying of the lips, with eyes that widened at him in the dim light,
she waited for the sound of his voice--waited as one waits for something
"terrible and dear"--the whirlwind that might destroy utterly, or
pass--to leave her forever exulting in a new sense of power against
elemental forces.

"Would you mind if I smoked, Nance?"

She stared stupidly. So tense had been her strain that the words were
mere meaningless blows that left her quivering. He thought she had not
heard.

"Would you mind my pipe--and this very mild mixture?"

She blessed him for the respite.

"Smoke, of course!" she managed to say.

She watched him closely, still alert, as he stuffed the tobacco into his
pipe-bowl from a rubber pouch. Then he struck the match and in that
moment she suffered another shock. The little flame danced out of the
darkness, and wavering, upward shadows played over a face of utter
quietness. The relaxed shoulders drooped sideways in the chair, the body
placidly sprawled, one crossed leg gently waving. The shaded eye
surveyed some large and tranquil thought--and in that eye the soul sat
remote, aloof from her as any star.

She sank back in her chair with a long, stealthy breath of relief--a
relief as cold as stone. She had not felt before that there was a chill
in the wide sweetness o