best gifts of life--she who had looked for them in such
very high, such very inaccessible places?

She felt like a child again. She trembled a little as she sat down by
his side. It was not in this fashion that she had intended to hear what
he had to say.

"I don't know what is the matter with me to-day," she murmured
distractedly. "I think I must send you away. You disturb my thoughts. I
can't see life clearly. Don't hope for too much from me," she begged.
"But don't go away," she added, with a sudden irresistible impulse of
anxiety. "Oh, I wish--I wish you understood me and everything about me,
without my having to say a word!"

"I feel what you are," he answered, "and that is sufficient."

Once more she rose to her feet and walked across to the window. An
automobile had stopped in the street below. She looked down upon it with
a sudden frozen feeling of apprehension.

John moved to her side, and for him, too, the joy of those few moments
was clouded. A little shiver of presentiment took its place. He
recognized the footman whom he saw standing upon the pavement.

"It is the Prince of Seyre," Louise faltered.

"Must you see him?" John muttered.

"Yes!"

"Send him away," John begged. "We haven't finished yet. I won't say
anything more to upset you. What I want now is some practical guidance."

"I cannot send him away!"

John glanced toward her and hated himself for his fierce jealousy. She
was looking very white and very pathetic. The light had gone from her
eyes. He felt suddenly dominant, and, with that feeling, there came all
the generosity of the conqueror.

"Good-by!" he said. "Perhaps I can see you some time to-morrow."

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers, one by one. Then
he left the room. She listened to his footsteps descending the stairs,
firm, resolute, deliberate. They paused, there was a sound of
voices--the prince and he were exchanging greetings; then she heard
other footsteps ascending, lighter, smoother, yet just as deliberate.

Her face grew paler as she listened. There was something which sounded
to her almost like the beating of fate in the slow, inevitable approach
of this unseen visitor.

XX

Henri Graillot had made himself thoroughly comfortable. He was ensconced
in the largest of John's easy chairs, his pipe in his mouth, a recently
refilled teacup--Graillot was English in nothing except his predilection
for tea--