his
unseeing eyes staring straight through the log walls and the black
night to a city a thousand miles away. He understood now. Josephine's
story was not the strangest thing in the world after all. It was
perhaps the oldest of all stories. He had heard it a hundred times
before, but never had it left him quite so cold and pulseless as he was
now. And yet, even as the palace of the wonderful ideal he had builded
crumbled about him in ruin, there rose up out of the dust of it a thing
new-born and tangible for him. Slowly his eyes turned to the beautiful
head bowed in its attitude of prayer. The blood began to surge back
into his heart. His hands unclenched. She had told him that he would
hate her, that he would want to leave her when he heard the story of
her despair. And instead of that he wanted to kneel beside her now and
take her close in his arms, and whisper to her that the sun had not set
for them, but that it had only begun to rise.

And then, as he took a step toward her, there flashed through his brain
like a disturbing warning the words with which she had told him that he
would never know the real cause of her grief. "YOU MAY GUESS, BUT YOU
WOULD NOT GUESS THE TRUTH IF YOU LIVED A THOUSAND YEARS." And could
this that he had heard, and this that he looked upon be anything but
the truth? Another step and he was at her side. For a moment all
barriers were swept from between them. She did not resist him as he
clasped her close to his breast. He kissed her upturned face again and
again, and his voice kept whispering: "I love you, my Josephine--I love
you--I love you--"

Suddenly there came to them sounds from out of the night. A door
opened, and through the hall there came the great, rumbling voice of a
man, half laughter, half shout; and then there were other voices, the
slamming of the door, and THE voice again, this time in a roar that
reached to the farthest walls of Adare House.

"Ho, Mignonne--Ma Josephine!"

And Philip held Josephine still closer and whispered:

"I love you!"

CHAPTER TEN

Not until the sound of approaching steps grew near did Josephine make
an effort to free herself from Philip's arms. Unresisting she had given
him her lips to kiss; for one rapturous moment he had felt the pressure
of her arms about his shoulders; in the blue depths of her eyes he had
caught the flash of wonderment and disbelief, and then the deeper,
tenderer glow of her surrender to him. In this moment he