he had expressed no gratitude to Mr. Outram for his heroic rescue of
her. Yet in her heart she was grateful enough. But for him she must now
have been dead, and the world of light and love would have closed its
gates upon her for ever. Still, mixed up with her gratitude and earnest
admiration of the deed of heroism which had been wrought for her sake,
was another feeling, a feeling of resentment and alarm. This stranger,
this dark, keen-eyed, resolute man had bought her as a slave; more, he
had gone through a form of marriage with her that was not all a form,
for it had been solemnly celebrated by a priest, and there on her finger
was the memorial of it. Of course it meant nothing, but the thought of
it angered her and offended her pride.

Like other women, Juanna Rodd had not come to twenty years of age
without dreaming of love, and, strange to say, her fancy had always
chosen some such man as Leonard for the hero of the story. But that the
hero should present himself in this ultra-heroic fashion, that he should
buy her with gold, that he should go through a form of marriage with
her within an hour of their first meeting--for these things she had
not bargained. It was a fact--that marriage was an accomplished fact,
although it might be null and void, and the female mind has a great
respect for accomplished facts. To a woman of Juanna's somewhat haughty
nature this was very galling. Already she felt it to be so, and as
time went on the chain of its remembrance irked her more and more, a
circumstance which accounts for much of her subsequent conduct.

Thinking such thoughts as these, Juanna strolled back towards the camp
along a little pathway in the reeds, and suddenly came face to face with
Leonard. She was clad in a white Arab robe, part of the loot, which she
had adapted cleverly to the purposes of a dress, fastening it round her
slender waist with an embroidered scarf. She wore no hat, and her rich
dark hair was twisted into a great knot that shone in the sunlight. In
her hand she held some crimson lilies which she had gathered, that made
a spot of colour on the whiteness of her dress. The look of haunting
terror was gone from her face, whose beauty had come back during her
sleep; her changing eyes shone beneath their dark lashes, and she moved
with the grace of a fawn.

Seen thus in that pure and pearly light against the green background
of the feathered reeds, nothing could have seemed more sweet and lovely
than