ook a sharp turn. He stepped noiselessly on to the grass
border, and crept round, with wonderful agility for a man of his size.
The foliage gradually thinned, and kneeling down he was able to listen
and peer through until the next flash should reveal what lay beyond.

The whisper thrilled with indescribable passion.

"I love you. You are my body, my soul, my god, my all. I love you--I
love you--I love you."

It was the voice of Christine Manderson.

Not a tremor escaped the listener. Parting the leaves with a hand as
steady as the ground itself, he waited for the light.

"I have no world but you--no thought but you. I want nothing but you ...
you ... you." A sob broke her voice.

"Go," the answer was almost inaudible in its tenseness. "Go--and forget.
I have nothing for you."

The lightning came. In a small open space on the other side of the hedge
it illuminated the wild tortured face of Christine Manderson. And
standing before her, gripping both her hands and holding her away from
him--John Tranter.

She struggled to bring herself closer to him.

"I thought you were dead," she gasped.

"I _am_ dead," he answered. "I am dead to you. Let me go."

The listener could almost hear the effort of her breathing.

"I waited for you," she panted. "I was broken. I had to seem happy--but
my heart was a tomb. You were all my life--all my hope. I know I wasn't
what I might have been. I was what people call an adventuress. But my
love for you was the one great, true thing of my life. Oh, why did you
leave me?"

"For your own sake," he said slowly. "I am no mate for such a woman as
you."

"My own sake?" she repeated. "My own sake--to take from me the only
thing I had--my only chance?--to throw my life into the shadows? My own
sake ... to have made me what I am?"

"I would have spared you this meeting," he returned, "if I had known.
But the name Christine Manderson was strange to me. I had never heard
it before."

"I changed my name," she said sadly. "I couldn't bear that any one
should use the name that you had used. I called myself Christine
Manderson, and went on the stage in New York. Oh, it was dreadful. All
those long years since you left me I have lived under a mask--as you
have seen me to-night. You thought I was smiling--but I didn't smile.
You thought I was laughing--but I didn't laugh. It was all ... only
disguised tears ... to hide myself."

"Go," his voice was torn. "For God's sake go ... Thea."

A