couldn't sleep."

He reflected upon this doubtfully. "Funny freak," he remarked.

"You're impertinent!"

"I don't mean to be. Forgive me. I'm only puzzled--"

"So am I puzzled," she retorted with spirit. "Suppose you tell me what
you're doing out here at this time of night--down on the
beach--anxious to escape notice. If you ask me, I call that a funnier
freak than mine!"

"Quite so," he agreed soberly; "and a very reasonable retort. Only I
can't tell you. It's--er--a private matter."

"So I presumed--"

"Look here, Miss Manwaring; this is a serious business with me. Give
me your word---"

"What makes that essential? Why do you think I'd lie--to you '?"

It was just that little quaver prefacing her last two words which
precipitated the affair. Otherwise a question natural enough under the
circumstances would have proved innocuous. But for the life of her she
could not control her voice; on those simple words it broke; and so
the question became confession--confession, accusation and challenge
all in, one.

It created first a pause, an instant of breathless suspense, while
Lyttleton stared in doubt and Sally steeled herself, with an effect of
trembling, reluctant, upon the brink of some vast mystery.

Then: "To me?" he said slowly. "You mean me to understand you might
lie to another-but not to me?"

Her response was little better than a gasp: "You know it!"

He acknowledged this with half a nod; he knew it well, too well.

Now she must have seemed very lovely to the man in that moment of
defiance. She saw his eyes lighten with a singular flash, saw his face
darken suddenly in the paling moonlight, and heard the sharp sibilance
of his indrawn breath.

And whether or not it was so, she fancied the wind had fallen, that
the night was hushed once more, and now more profoundly than it had
ever been, as though the very world were standing still in
anticipation.

She heard him cry, almost angrily: "Oh, damn it, I must not!"

And with that she was in his arms, sobbing, panting, going to heaven
against his lips. . . .

Then fell a lull. She was conscious that his embrace relaxed a trifle,
heard the murmur of his consternation: "Oh, this is madness, madness!"

But when she tried to release herself his arms tightened.

"No!" he said thickly, "not now--not after this. Don't. I love you!"

She braced her hands against his breast, struggled, thrust him away
from her, found herself free at last.

"You don't