!" she answered, sadly, leaning a little forward, with her head
resting upon her clasped hands. "I don't suppose that I shall. If he
had died, it would have been different. Now that he is going to get
well, I suppose I shall try to forget."

"To forget," he murmured, trying to take her hand.

She drew it away with a shiver.

"No!" she said. "That is finished. I had to see you. I had to talk to
you. Go away, please. I cannot bear to see you any more. It is too
terrible--too terrible!"

A born cajoler of women, he forced into play all his powers. He
whispered a flood of words in her ear. His own voice shook, his eyes
were soft. He pleaded as one beside himself. Lois--Lois whom he had
found so sensitive, so easily moved, so gently affectionate--remained
like a stone. At the end of all his pleadings she simply looked away.

"Do you mind," she asked, "leaving me? Please! Please!"

He got up and went. Defeat was apparent enough, although it was
unexpected. Lois stole back to the house--stole back to her room and
locked the door.

Saton walked home across the hills, with white face and set eyes. He
looked neither to the right nor to the left, and when he arrived at
Blackbird's Nest, he walked straight into the long, old-fashioned room
on the ground floor, which he called his library, and where Rachael
generally sat.

She was there, crouching over the fire, when he entered, and looked
around with frowning face.

"Bertrand," she said, "I hate this country life. Even the sunshine
mocks. There is no warmth in it, and the winds are cold. I must have
warmth. I shall stay here no longer."

He threw a log on to the fire, and turned around.

"Listen," he said. "The girl Lois Champneyes--I have lost my hold of
her. She knows something about the accident to Rochester."

"Bungler!" the woman muttered. "Go on. Tell me how you lost your
power."

"I cannot tell," he answered. "I was in an unsettled mood. I think
that I was a little afraid. She spoke of that afternoon. It all came
back to me. I am sure that I was afraid," he added, passing his hand
across his forehead.

She leaned toward him and her eyes glittered, hard and bright, from
their parchment-like setting.

"Bertrand," she said, "you talk like a coward. What are you going to
do?"

"To bring her here," he answered hoarsely. "She has gone back to
Beauleys. She is passing up through the plantation, on her way to the
house, perhaps, at this very moment. She wore wh