f together and began to speak more rationally.

"At least tell me the reason," he besought. "I know I've no right to
ask, but it matters so much. Have pity and tell me, is it someone else?"

She shook her head faintly between her sobs.

"Thank goodness for that anyway. Tell me once again. Is it that you
don't like me?"

Again she shook her head.

"You do like me!" he exclaimed breathlessly. "You do, Madeleine. Say it!
Say that you do!"

She made a resolute effort for self-control.

"You know I do, but--" she began in a tremulous whisper. In a paroxysm
of overwhelming excitement he interrupted her.

"Madeleine," he cried wildly, again seizing her hands, "you don't--it
couldn't be possible that you--that you love me?"

This time she did not withdraw her hands. Slowly she raised her eyes to
his, and in them he read his answer. In a moment she was in his arms and
he was crushing her to his heart.

For a breathless space she lay, a happy little smile on her lips, and
then the moment passed. "Oh!" she cried, struggling to release herself,
"what have I done? Let me go! I shouldn't have--"

"Darling," he breathed triumphantly. "I'll never let you go as long as I
live! You love me! What else matters?"

"No, no," she cried again, her tears once more flowing. "I was wrong. I
shouldn't have allowed you. It can never be."

He laughed savagely.

"Never be?" he repeated. "Why, dear one, it is. I'd like to know the
person or thing that could stop it now!"

"It can never be," she repeated in a voice of despair. "You don't
understand. There are obstacles."

She argued. He scoffed first, then he pleaded. He demanded to be told
the nature of the barrier, then he besought, but all to no purpose. She
would say no more than that it could never be.

And then--suddenly the question of the syndicate flashed into his
mind, and he sat, almost gasping with wonder as he realized that he had
entirely forgotten it! He had forgotten this mysterious business which
had occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of almost all else for the
past two months! It seemed to him incredible. Yet so it was.

There surged over him a feeling of relief, so that once more he all but
laughed. He turned to Madeleine.

"I know," he cried triumphantly, "the obstacle. And it's just nothing at
all. It's this syndicate business that your father has got mixed up in.
Now tell me! Isn't that it?"

The effect of his words on the girl was instantaneous. She s