ught, for in that room my
brother's work was my one excuse to intrude!

By this time the car must have arrived. The front door must have flown
open in welcome. Now Mother Beckett must be crying tears of joy in the
arms of her son, Father Beckett gazing at the blessed sight, speechless
with ecstasy!

What should I be doing at this moment, if I had yielded to their wish
and stopped downstairs with them? Just how far would Jim have gone in
keeping up the tragic farce? Would he have kissed me? Would he----?

The vision was so blazing bright that I covered my eyes to shut it out.
Not that I hated it. Oh no, I loved it too well!

So, for a while, I stood, my hands pressed over my eyes, my ears
strained to catch distant sounds--yet wishing not to hear. Suddenly,
close by, there came the click of a latch. My hands dropped like broken
clock weights. I opened my eyes. Jim Beckett was in the room, and the
door was shut.

CHAPTER XXXIII

I stared, fascinated. Here was Jim-of-the-rose-arbour, and a new
Jim-of-the-war--a browner, thinner, sterner Jim, a Jim that looked at me
with a look I could not read. It may have been cruel, but it was not
cold, and it pierced like a hot sword-blade through my flesh into my
soul.

"_You_--after all!" he said. The remembered voice I had so often heard
in dreams, struck on my nerves like a hand on the strings of a harp. I
felt the vibration thrill through me.

"Yes--it's I." The answer came in a whisper from dry lips. "I'm sorry!"

"What are you sorry for? Because you are you?"

"It wouldn't be--_quite_ so horrible if--I'd been a stranger."

"You think not?"

"I--it seems as if I took advantage of--oh, that's just what I did! I'm
not asking you to forgive me----"

"It isn't so much a question of forgiving, as putting things straight.
We _must_ put them straight----"

"I'll do whatever you wish," I promised. "Only--let me go soon."

"Are you afraid of me?" There was sharpness in his tone.

"Not afraid. I am--utterly humiliated."

"Why did you do this--thing? Let's have that out first."

"The thought came into my head when I was at my wits' end--for my
brother. Not that that's an excuse!"

"I'm not worrying about excuses. It's explanations I need, I had my own
theories--thinking it all over--and wondering--whether it would be you
or a stranger I should find. The name was the one thing I had to go on:
'O'Malley' and its likeness to Ommalee. That was the way I heard your