hen she spoke again, trembled with an
immeasurable relief. "You were good, Jeems. I am glad."

In that darkness he could not see. Yet something reached into him,
thrilling him, quickening his pulse with a thing to which his eyes were
blind. He bent down. He found her lips upturned, offering him the
sweetness of the kiss which was to be his reward; and as he felt their
warmth upon his own, he felt also the slightest pressure of her hands
upon his arms.

"He is gone. We will light the lamp again," she said then.

CHAPTER XVI

Kent stood still while Marette moved in that gloom, found matches, and
lighted the lamp. He had not spoken a word after the kiss. He had not
taken advantage of it. The gentle pressure of her hands had restrained
him from taking her in his arms. But the kiss itself fired him with a
wild and glorious thrill that was like a vibrant music to which every
atom of life in his body responded. If he claimed his reward at all, he
had expected her kiss to be perhaps indifferent, at least neutral. But
the lips she had given him there in the darkness of the room were warm,
living, breathing lips. They had not been snatched away from him too
quickly. Their sweetness, for an instant, had lingered.

Then, in the lamp glow, he was looking into Marette Radisson's face. He
knew that his own was aflame. He had no desire to hide its confession,
and he was eager to find what lay in her own eyes. And he was
astonished, and then startled. The kiss had not disturbed Marette. It
was as if it had never happened.

She was not embarrassed, and there was no hint of color in her face. It
was her deathly whiteness that startled him, a pallor emphasized by the
dark masses of her hair, and a strange glow in her eyes. It was not a
glow brought there by the kiss. It was fear, fading slowly out of them
as he looked, until at last it was gone, and her lips trembled with an
apologetic smile.

"He was very angry," she said. "How easily some men lose their tempers,
don't they--Jeems?"

The little break in her voice, her brave effort to control herself, and
the whimsical bit of smile that accompanied her words made him want to
do what the gentle pressure of her hands had kept him from doing a few
moments before--pick her up in his arms. What she was trying to hide he
saw plainly. She had been in danger, a danger greater than that which
she had quietly and fearlessly faced at barracks. And she was still
afraid of that menace