e woman--my heart
whispered it in that moment, and has shouted it ever since. Helen, I
did not mean to speak yet, but--well, you see how it is with me! Tell
me it is not altogether hopeless! You know what my position is; you
know that in two years----"

Helen Yardely rose swiftly to her feet. Her beautiful face had paled a
little. She stopped the flood of words with her lifted hand.

"Please, Mr. Ainley! There is no need to enter on such details."

"Then----"

"You have taken me by surprise," said the girl slowly. "I had no idea
that you--that you--I have never thought of it."

"But you can think now, Helen," he said urgently. "I mean every word
that I have said. I love you. You must see that--now. Let us join our
lives together, and together find the romance for which you crave."

The blood was back in the girl's cheeks now, running in rosy tides, and
there was a light in her grey eyes that made Ainley's pulse leap with
hope, since he mistook it for something else. His passion was real
enough, as the girl felt, and she was simple and elemental enough to be
thrilled by it; but she was sufficiently wise not to mistake the
response in herself for the greater thing. The grey eyes looked
steadily into his for a moment, then a thoughtful look crept into them,
and Ainley knew that for the moment he had lost.

"No," she said slowly, "no, I am not sure that would be wise. I do not
feel as I ought to feel in taking such a decision as that. And
besides----"

"Yes?" he said, urgently, as she paused. "Yes?"

"Well," she flushed a little, and her tongue stumbled among the words,
"you are not quite the man--that I--that I have thought
of--for--for----." She broke off again, laughed a little at herself and
then blurted confusedly: "You see all my life, from being a very little
girl, I have worshipped heroes."

"And I am not a hero," said Ainley with a harsh laugh. "No! I am just
the ordinary man doing the ordinary things, and my one claim to notice
is that I love you! But suppose the occasion came? Suppose I----." He
broke off and stood looking at her for a moment. Then he asked, "Would
that make no difference?"

"It might," replied the girl, the shrinking from the infliction of too
severe a blow.

"Then I live for that occasion!" cried Ainley. "And who knows? In this
wild land it may come any hour!"

As a matter of fact the occasion offered itself six days later--a
Sunday, when Sir James Yardely had insisted on a day