walk on with him. "Do you mind telling me--did
you--did you--forgive her?"

"Yes," he said very quietly.

A quick shiver went through her. "Then I must too," she said. "At
least--I must try. She--she--I loved her once, you know, before I began
to understand."

"Everyone loved her," he said.

"But life is very difficult, isn't it?" she urged rather tremulously.

"Your life has been," he said.

She nodded. "One can't help--can't help--making mistakes--even bad
ones--sometimes."

"You've just made one," he said.

She faced him valiantly. "Ah, but you don't understand. You--you can't
throw away--what you've never had, can you--can you?"

"What you've got," he corrected gravely. "Yes, you can."

She flung out her hands with a wide gesture. "But I haven't got it! I
never had it! He took me out of pity. He never--pretended to love me."

"No," said Larpent, with grim certitude. "He isn't pretending this time."

She stared at him, wide-eyed, motionless. "Not pretending? What do you
mean? Please--what do you mean?"

He held out his hand. "Good-bye!" he said abruptly. "I mean--just that."

Her lips were parted to say more, but something in his face or action
checked her. She put her hand into his. "Good-bye!" she said.

He held her hand for a moment, then, moved by some hint of forlornness in
the clear eyes, he bent, as he had bent at the Castle on that summer
evening weeks before, and lightly touched her forehead with his lips.

"Oh, that's nice of you," said Toby quickly. "Thank you for that."

"Don't thank me for anything!" said Larpent. "Play a straight game,
that's all!"

And with the words he left her finally, striding away over the sand with
that careless sailor's gait of his, gazing always far ahead of him out to
the dim horizon. Perhaps as long as he lived his look would never again
dwell upon anything nearer.

CHAPTER X

IN THE NAME OF LOVE

"It's been--a funny game," said Saltash, with a wry grimace. "We've both
of us been so damned subtle that it seems to me we've ended up in much
the same sort of hole that we started in."

"But you're not going to stay in it," said Maud.

He turned and looked down at her, one eyebrow cocked at a comic angle.
"_Ma belle reine_, if you can help us to climb out, you will earn my
undying gratitude."

She met his look with her steadfast eyes. "Charlie, do you know that
night after night she cries as if her poor little heart were broken?"

Saltash's