had met the memory of one
alone was still provocative of a genuine thrill of interest--and
that was the unknown artist whom she had encountered in the woods at
Coverdale.

Even now, after the lapse of ten years, she could remember the young,
lean, square-jawed face with the grey eyes, "like eyes with little fires
behind them," and hear again the sudden jerky note in the man's voice as
he muttered, "Witch-child!"

That brief adventure with "Saint Michel"--she remembered calling
him "Saint Michel"--stood out as one of the clearest memories of her
childhood. That, and the memory of her mother, kneeling on the big
bearskin rug and saying in a hard, dry voice: "Never give your heart to
any man. Take everything. But do not give--anything--in return."

CHAPTER II

OUT OF THE FOG

A sudden warning shout, the transient glare of fog-blurred headlights,
then a crash and a staggering blow on the car's near side which sent
it reeling like a drunken thing, bonnet foremost, straight into a
motor-omnibus.

Magda felt herself pitched violently forward off the seat, striking her
head as she fell, and while the car yet rocked with the force of its
collision with the motor-bus another vehicle drove blindly into it
from the rear. It lurched sickeningly and jammed at a precarious angle,
canted up on two wheels.

Shouts and cries, the frenzied hooting of horns, the grinding of brakes
and clash of splintered glass combined into a pandemonium of terrifying
hubbub.

Magda, half-dazed with shock, crouched on the floor of the car where she
had been flung. She could see the lights appearing and disappearing in
the fog like baleful eyes opening and shutting spasmodically. A tumult
of hoarse cries, cursing and bellowing instructions, crossed by the thin
scream of women's cries, battered against her ears.

Then out of the medley of raucous noise came a cool, assured voice:

"Don't be frightened. I'll get you out."

Magda was conscious of a sudden reaction from the numbed sense of
bewildered terror which had overwhelmed her. The sound of that unknown
voice--quiet, commanding, and infinitely reassuring--was like a hand
laid on her heart and stilling its terrified throbbing.

She heard someone tugging at the handle of the door. There came a
moment's pause while the strained woodwork resisted the pull, then with
a scrape of jarring fittings the door jerked open and a man's figure
loomed in the aperture.

"Where are you?" he asked, pe