voice entirely devoid
of expression, he said quietly:

"Mrs. Seymour left her fan behind--I came back to fetch it." With a
slight bow he picked up the forgotten fan and turned to go. "Good-bye
once more."

The door closed behind him, and Nan stood very still, her arms hanging
down at her sides. But Maryon could read the stricken expression in her
eyes--the desperate appeal of them. They betrayed her.

"What's that man to you?" he demanded.

"Nothing."

He caught her roughly by the shoulders.

"I don't believe it!" he exclaimed hotly. "He's the man you love. The
very expression of your face gave it away."

"I've told you," she answered unemotionally. "Peter Mallory is nothing
to me, never can be anything, except"--her voice quivered a little
despite herself--"just a friend."

Maryon's eyes searched her face.

"Then kiss me!" He repeated his earlier demand, imperiously.

She drew back.

"Why should I kiss you?"

The quietly uttered question seemed to set him very far apart from her.
In an instant he knew how much he had forfeited by his absence.

"Nan," he said, in his voice a curious charm of appeal, "do you know it's
nearly a year since I saw you? And now--now I've only half an hour!"

"Only half an hour?" she repeated vaguely.

"Yes, I go back to Devonshire to-night. But I craved a glimpse of the
'Beloved' before I went."

The words brought Nan sharply back to herself. He was still the same
incomprehensible, unsatisfactory lover as of old, and with the
realisation a cold fury of scorn and resentment swept over her, blotting
out what she had always counted as her love for him. It was as though a
string, too tightly stretched, had suddenly snapped.

She answered him indifferently.

"To cheer you on your way, I suppose?"

"No. I shouldn't"--significantly--"call it cheering. I've been back in
England a month, alone in the damned desolation of Dartmoor,
fighting--fighting to keep away from you."

She looked at him with steady, scrutinising eyes.

"Why need you have kept away?" she asked incisively.

"At the bidding of the great god Circumstance. Oh, my dear, my
dear"--speaking with passionate vehemence--"don't you know . . . don't
you understand that if only I weren't a poor devil of a painter with my
way to make in a world that can only be bought with gold--nothing should
part us ever again? . . . But as it is--"

Nan listened to the outburst with down-bent head. She understoo