She knew if he went from her
like that, believing she had ceased to care, he would never come back
again. He would wipe her out utterly from his thoughts--out of his
heart. Henceforward she would be only a dead memory to him--the symbol
of a shattered faith.

It was more than she could bear. She could not give up that--Peter's
faith in her! It was all she had to cling to--to carry her through
life.

She stretched out her arms to him, crying brokenly:

"Oh, Peter--Peter--"

At the sound, of her low, shaken voice, with its infinite appeal for
understanding, the iron control he had been forcing on himself snapped
asunder, and he caught her in his arms, kissing her with the fierce
hunger of a man who has been starved of love.

She leaned against him, physically unable to resist, and deep down in
her heart glad that she could not. For the moment everything was swept
away in an anguish of happiness--in the ecstasy of burning kisses
crushed against her mouth and throat and the strained clasp of arms
locked round her.

"My woman!" he muttered unsteadily. "My woman!"

She could feel the hard beating of his heart, and her slender body
trembled in his arms with an answering passion that sprang from the
depths of her being. Forgetful of everything, save only of each other
and their great love, their lips clung together.

Presently he tilted her head back. Her face was white, the shadowed
eyes like two dark stains on the ivory bloom of a magnolia.

"Beloved! . . . Nan, say that you love me--let me hear you say it!"

"You know!" Her voice shook uncontrollably. "You don't need to ask
me, Peter. It--it _hurts_ to love anyone as I love you."

His hold tightened round her.

"You're mine . . . mine out of all the world . . . my beloved. . . ."

A flare of lightning and again the menacing roll of thunder. Then,
sudden as the swoop of a bat, the electric burners quivered and went
out, leaving only the glow of the fire to pierce the gloom. In the dim
light she could see his face bent over her--the face of her man, the
man she loved, and all that was woman and lover within her leaped to
answer the call of her mate--the infinite, imperious demand of human
love that has waited and hungered through empty days and nights till at
last it shall be answered by the loved one.

For a moment she lay unresisting in his arms, helpless in the grip of
the passion of love which had engulfed them both. Then the memory of
th