ke a child into the outstretched arms, and he,
having wet his handkerchief on the mist-damped grass, bent the weary
head back against his shoulder, and wiped away the blood-stains from
the despairing face.

"You walk in your sleep, Leonie, by reason of the workings of an
overwrought brain, that is all. India is the problem, and your ayah is
the answer. _I_ think she frightened you somehow, made some deep
impression on you, on your baby brain, and we are going to India to
find her. It's very simple, dear, once find the cause we can easily
find the remedy, and it will be much better if you come with me. By
the way, who gave you that cat's-eye?"

He had made a slip.

"When did you see it?" answered Leonie quickly, "I never showed it to
you! Were--were you down _there_ near me, _before_ you called?"

"No," steadily lied the man, "but the thing slipped through your blouse
one day--it's a brute. Who gave it to you?"

"My ayah! Do you know, I think you are quite wrong about her. Auntie
says Mother told her that she nearly broke her heart when I left India,
seventeen years ago, and she writes to me regularly every three months.
Only last week I had a letter from----"

"Do you speak Hindustani?" interrupted Cuxson abruptly, with a frown on
his face.

"Not a word!"

"Or Sanskrit?"

"Oh! no, neither, but the letters are in English, evidently written by
one of those letter writers, who get so much for each letter they write
for the illiterate poor. And in every one she says how she loves me
and longs for my return, and although she is very happy in the service
of some Ranee in the north of India, she wants to give it up and come
to me."

There was a pause, broken by the nearing thunder and the crash of the
waves against the cliffs.

"Don't let's worry about that yet, dear, as everything is settled
splendidly and----"

But Leonie pulled away and stood facing him with her hands in his
against his heart.

"Do you really _love_ me?"

The whisper was almost lost in the tumult of the breakers beneath.

"_Love_ you, Leonie, _love_ you!"

"What would you _forgive_ me through love?"

"_Forgive_ you! Everything! Dishonour could not touch you, and
everything else I should forgive!"

Leonie tried to speak as she looked past him to the little green track
between the downs which led to the world, and all it contained for her;
and he, obtuse male, content in the plans he had mapped out entirely to
his own sati