ences of to-night. Perhaps it was in
some shadowy dream which faded from her memory on awaking. "I know why
you are here," she repeats throwing back her head against the bamboo
panelling, and stretching out her arms in the attitude of a crucified
victim. "I read it in your face. But I am too young to die, too
sin-stained."

"You think I have come to kill you, Eleanor?"

His words are low and hollow; they seem strangely similar to the
warning growl of his huge dog. She thinks he has grown to resemble the
ferocious-looking beast, or "Help," in the moonlight, appears like his
master--from perpetual companionship.

But even as she looks, something of the man creeps into Philip's eyes,
humanising them. The brute nature fades.

She answers his question under her breath:

"Yes, you have hunted me down to take my life."

An expression of intense pain contracts his features; she has cut him
to the quick.

With a woman's sharp instinct, intensified by dread, Eleanor sees that
her doom is not yet; but the thought of another burns like fire in her
brain. Her own miserable thread of life, what does it matter? She
holds it as nought compared with the one she loves. She would die a
thousand deaths if such a sacrifice would buy him safety.

"How little you understand me!" he says at last. "It was always so."

"Why have you come?" she asks, faintly tracing the shadows that fall
around him in the pallid moonlight.

He turns, as if in answer, to the scattered rags of a silken coat, some
of which still hang in the mastiff's jaws; then his gaze travels
through the verandah, down the zig-zag path towards the jungle.

Eleanor interprets the look. With a swift movement she wrenches
herself from the wall against which she has seemed to be held as if by
a strong magnet, crosses the room with quick and noiseless tread,
fastens the folding window doors together with a click, facing Philip
in defiant silence.

"You have come for him," she hisses, the hatred in her eyes gleaming
forth. "You would kill--Carol."

At the mention of his name from her lips Philip starts.

"Is it not so?" she cries wildly, raising her voice, which trembles
with emotion, vibratos with dread.

For the moment Philip does not reply, only his face lights up as with
the glory of revenge.

Eleanor's fingers tighten on the window fastening. She clings to it
for support.

A strangled cry breaks from her lips, and the half incoherent words:
"My G