you wait a few minutes?"

"No."

"I should have liked to thank you. . . . So would Miss Bakefield.
. . ."

"Miss Bakefield has my best wishes!"

She mounted. Antonio snatched at the bridle, as though determined to
detain her, and began to speak to her in a choking voice and in a
language which Simon did not understand.

She did not move. Her beautiful, austere face did not change. She
waited, with her eyes on the horizon, until the Indian, discouraged,
released the bridle. Then she rode away. Not once had her eyes met
Simon's.

She rode away, mysterious and secretive to the last. Simon's refusal,
his conduct during the night which they had passed in the prehistoric
dwelling must have humiliated her profoundly; and the best proof was
this departure without farewell. But, on the other hand, what miracles
of dogged heroism she must have wrought to cross this sinister region
by herself and to save not only the man who had spurned her but the
woman whom that man loved above all things in this world!

A hand rested on Simon's shoulder:

"You, Isabel!" he said.

"Yes. . . . I was over there, a little farther on. . . . I saw Dolores
go."

The girl seemed to hesitate. At length, she murmured, watching him
attentively:

"You didn't tell me she was so strikingly beautiful, Simon."

He felt slightly embarrassed. Looking her straight in the eyes, he
replied:

"I had no occasion to tell you, Isabel."

At five o'clock that afternoon, the French and British troops being
now in touch, it was decided that Lord Bakefield and his daughter
should make part of an English convoy which was returning to Hastings
and which had a motor-ambulance at its disposal. Simon took leave of
them, after asking Lord Bakefield's permission to call on him at an
early date.

Simon considered that his mission was not yet completed in these days
of confusion. Indeed, before the afternoon was over, an aeroplane
alighted in sight of the camp and the captain was asked to send
immediately reinforcements, as a conflict appeared inevitable between
the French and a British detachment, both of which had planted their
colours on a ridge overlooking the whole country. Simon did not
hesitate for a moment. He took his place between the two airmen.

It is needless to describe in all its details the part which he played
in this incident, which might have had deplorable results: the way in
which he threw himself between the adversaries, his entreaties, h