id you ever send me away--when I belonged to
you--and to no one else? You meant to give me my chance? What chance have
I of anything but hell and damnation away from you? No, listen! Let me
speak! Hear me first!" She uttered the words with passionate insistence.
"I'm not asking anything of you--only to be with you. I'll be to you
whatever you choose me to be--always--always. I will be your valet, your
slave, your--plaything. I will be--the dust under your feet. But I must
be with you. You understand me. No one else does. No one else ever can."

"Are you sure you understand yourself?" Saltash said.

His arms had closed about her. He was holding her in a vital clasp. But
his restless look did not dwell upon her. It seemed rather to be seeking
something beyond.

Toby's hands met and gripped each other behind his neck. She clung to him
with an almost frenzied closeness.

"You can't send me away!" she told him brokenly. "If you do, I shall die.
And I'm asking such a little--such a very little."

"You don't know what you're asking, child," he said, and though he held
her fast pressed to him his voice had the sombre ring of a man who
battles with misgiving. "You have never known. That's the hell of it."

"I do know!" she flung back almost fiercely. "I know--all I need to
know--of most things. I know--very well--" her breath came quickly, but
still her eyes remained upraised--"what would have happened--what was
bound to happen--if the yacht had never gone down. I wasn't afraid then.
I'm not now. You're the only man on this earth that I'd say it to. I hate
men--most men! But to you--to you--" a sudden sob caught her voice, she
paused to steady it--"to you I just want to be whatever you're needing
most in life. And when I can't be that to you any longer--I'll just drop
out--as I promised--and you--you shall never know a thing about it.
That I swear."

His look came swiftly to her. The blue eyes were swimming in tears. He
made a sudden gesture as of capitulation, and the strain went out of his
look. His arms tightened like springs about her. He spoke lightly,
jestingly.

"_Bien!_ Shall I tell what you shall be to me, _mignonne_?" he said, and
smiled down at her with his royal air of confidence.

She trembled a little and was silent, realizing that he had suddenly
leapt to a decision, fearing desperately what that decision might be. His
old baffling mask of banter had wholly replaced the sombreness, but she
was aware of a