nd! who are you?"

But 'twas no shadow that he grasped. A muscular arm was round him in a
trice, a brawny hand at his throat, a twisting, sinewy leg was curled in
his, and he went reeling back upon the springy turf, stunned and
wellnigh breathless.

When he could regain his feet and reach the casement the stranger had
vanished; but Mrs. Maynard lay there on the floor within, a white and
senseless heap.

X.

Perhaps it was as well for all parties that Frank Armitage concluded
that he must have another whiff of tobacco that night as an incentive to
the "think" he had promised himself. He had strolled through the park to
the grove of trees out on the point and seated himself in the shadows.
Here his reflections were speedily interrupted by the animated
flirtations of a few couples who, tiring of the dance, came out into the
coolness of the night and the seclusion of the grove, where their
murmured words and soft laughter soon gave the captain's nerves a strain
they could not bear. He broke cover and betook himself to the very edge
of the stone retaining wall out on the point.

He wanted to think calmly and dispassionately; he meant to weigh all he
had read and heard and form his estimate of the gravity of the case
before going to bed. He meant to be impartial,--to judge her as he would
judge any other woman so compromised; but for the life of him he could
not. He bore with him the mute image of her lovely face, with its clear,
truthful, trustful dark eyes. He saw her as she stood before him on the
little porch when they shook hands on their laughing--or his
laughing--compact, for she would not laugh. How perfect she was!--her
radiant beauty, her uplifted eyes, so full of their self-reproach and
regret at the speech she had made at his expense! How exquisite was the
grace of her slender, rounded form as she stood there before him, one
slim hand half shyly extended to meet the cordial clasp of his own! He
wanted to judge and be just; but that image dismayed him. How could he
look on this picture and then--on that,--the one portrayed in the chain
of circumstantial evidence which the colonel had laid before him? It was
monstrous! it was treason to womanhood! One look in her eyes, superb in
their innocence, was too much for his determined impartiality. Armitage
gave himself a mental kick for what he termed his imbecility, and went
back to the hotel.

"It's no use," he muttered. "I'm a slave of the weed, and can't