wn words--struck by
the full significance of them.

"When you go!" he repeated blankly. His grip of her slight hands
tightened till it was almost painful. "But you won't go! I can't let you
go now! Magda--"

The situation was threatening to get out of hand. Magda drew quickly
away from him, springing to her feet.

"Don't talk like that," she said hastily. "You don't mean it, you know."

With a sudden, unexpected movement she slipped from his side and ran
down to the river's edge. He caught a flashing glimpse of scarlet, heard
the splash as her slim body cleaved the water, and a moment later all he
could see was the red of her turban cap, bobbing like a scarlet poppy
on the surface of the river, and the glimmer of a moon-white arm and
shoulder as a smooth overhand stroke bore her swiftly away from him.

He stood staring after her, conscious of a sudden bewildered sense of
check and thwarting. The blood seemed leaping in his veins. His heart
thudded against his ribs. He stepped forward impetuously as though to
plunge in after the receding gleam of scarlet still flickering betwixt
the branches which overhung the river.

Then, with a stifled exclamation, he drew back, brushing his hand across
his eyes as though to clear their vision. What mad impulse was this
urging him on to say and do such things as he had never before conceived
himself saying or doing?

Magda had checked him on the brink of telling her--what? The sweat broke
out on his forehead as the realisation surged over him.

"God!" he muttered. "God!"

CHAPTER XII

THE LATEST NEWS

Magda hardly knew what impulse had bidden her save Dan Storran from
himself--check the hot utterance to which he had so nearly given voice
and which to a certain extent she had herself provoked. Driven by the
bitterness of spirit which Michael's treatment of her had engendered,
she knew that she had flirted outrageously with Dan ever since she
had come to Stockleigh. She had bestowed no thought on June--pretty,
helpless June, watching with distressed, bewildered eyes while Dan
unaccountably changed towards her, his moods alternating from sullen
unresponsiveness to a kind of forced and contrite tenderness which she
had found almost more difficult to meet and understand.

It was indeed something altogether apart from any sympathy for June
which had prompted Magda to leave Storran before he uttered words that
he might regret, but which no power on earth could ever recall.