Quinton Edge still
lives."

"You loved him?" persisted Ulick, the sense of his injury still strong
within him.

The girl drew herself up proudly. "Yes, I loved him--that is for you and
all the world to know. But be comforted; he cared not a whit for me.
That, in the end, was made plain enough."

Ulick's fare was pale. "But he still stands between us?" he said.

"Yes," she answered, simply.

The rain had almost ceased; Esmay made a movement to depart.

"There is nothing--no way in which I can serve you?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Nothing. I am going back to Arcadia House, but I
shall have Nanna with me. There is nothing to fear."

He regarded her fixedly. "What can you do against Quinton Edge? He is
the master--our master."

"I do not know; I have not thought. But I can watch and I can wait."

"Waiting! If that were all----"

"No, no! it could not be." She colored hotly, and he stopped, abashed.

"You must go now," she went on, gently. "Ulick, dear Ulick, I am sending
you away, but, indeed, it is better so. And I shall remember--always."

He would have spoken again, but something in her face restrained him. He
bent and kissed her reverently, as a brother might, and went out. And
she, watching him go, found her vision suddenly blurred by a mist of
tears. For there is something in every woman's heart that pleads a true
man's cause, for all that she may not accept the gift he proffers.

Nanna had disappeared into the house some few minutes before; now she
returned from her journey of discovery, wearing an expression of gravity
quite new to her. "Come," she said, "I want to show you something."

She drew Esmay after her down the draughty passage that led to the
offices of the long-since-deserted dwelling-house. There was a large
apartment at the end of the passage--the kitchen, to judge from the
character of the fittings. The room had been formerly lighted by
electricity, and Nanna pointed out a lampwire whose free end was
dangling in close proximity to a lead water-pipe. Underneath was a small
heap of oil-soaked rags.

"You remember what we saw at the House of Power?" said Nanna,
significantly.

Esmay examined the wire carefully. At the broken end the insulating
fabric had been stripped off and the copper scraped clean and bright
with a knife-blade.

"I found this on a nail in the passage," went on Nanna, and held out a
bit of cloth that had been torn from a garment. It was of that peculiar
weav