see either her or him. He placed his hands upon her shoulders and
compelled her to look him straight in the face.

"Listen, Crystal," he said slowly and with desperate earnestness. "Once,
long ago, I gave you up to de Marmont, to affluence and to
considerations of your name and of our caste. It all but broke my heart,
but I did it because your father demanded that sacrifice from you and
from me. I was ready then to stand aside and to give up all the dreams
of my youth. . . . But now everything is different. For one thing, the
events of the past hundred days have made every man many years older:
the hell I went through to-day has helped to make a more sober, more
determined man of me. Now I will not give you up. I will not. My way is
clear: I can win you with your father's consent and give him and you all
that de Marmont had promised. The King trusts me and will give me what I
ask. I am no longer a wastrel, no longer poor and obscure. And I will
not give you up--I swear it by all that I have gone through to-day. I
will not! if I have to kill with my own hand every one who stands in my
way."

And Crystal, smiling, quite kindly and a little abstractedly at his
impulsive earnestness, gently removed his hands from her shoulders and
said calmly:

"You are tired, Maurice, and overwrought. Shall we go in and wait for
father? He will be getting anxious about me." And without waiting to see
if he followed her, she turned to walk toward the steps.

St. Genis smothered a violent oath, but he said nothing more. He was
satisfied with what he had done. He knew that women liked a masterful
man and he meant every word which he said. He would not give her up
. . . not now . . . and not to . . . Ye gods! he would not think of
that;--he would not think of the lonely roadside nor of the wounded man
who had robbed him of Crystal's love. He had done his duty by
Clyffurde--what more could he have done at this hour?--and he meant to
do far more than that--he meant to go back to the English hospital as
soon as possible, to see that Clyffurde had every attention, every care,
every comfort that human sympathy can bestow. What more could he do? He
would have done no good by going out with the ambulance himself--surely
not--he would have missed seeing Crystal--and she would have fretted and
been still more anxious . . . his first duty was to Crystal . . . and
. . . and . . . St. Genis only thought of Crystal and of himself and the
voice of Cons