the mind. At any rate, whether that were the cause or
no, in this new phase he gave no thought to yielding.

He had sat for some minutes in the attitude of depression, or bodily
weakness, which has, been described, when once more a sound startled
him. He raised his head and turned his eyes, sharpened by hunger, on
the window. But this time, distrusting his senses, he did not rise
until the sound was repeated. Then he faltered to his feet, and once
again went unsteadily to the window, and, leaning a hand on each jamb,
looked out.

At the same moment Flavia looked in. Their eyes met. Their faces were
less than a yard apart.

The girl started back with a low cry, caused either by alarm on finding
him so near her or by horror at the change in his aspect. If the
latter, there was abundant cause. For she had left him hungry, she
found him starving; she had left him haggard, she found him with eyes
unnaturally large, his temples hollow, his lips dry, his chin unshaven.
It was indeed a mask rather than a face, a staring mask of famine, that
looked out of the dusky room at her, and looked not the less pitifully,
not the less wofully, because, as soon as its owner took in her
identity, the mask tried to smile.

"Mother of God!" she whispered. Her face had grown nearly as white as
his. "O Mother of God!" She had imagined nothing like this.

And Colonel John, believing--his throat was so dry that he could not
speak at once--that he read pity as well as horror in her face, felt a
sob rise in his breast. He tried to smile the more bravely for that,
and presently he found his voice, a queer, husky voice.

"You must not leave me--too long," he said. His smile was becoming
ghastly.

She drew in her breath, and averted her face, to hide, he hoped, the
effect of the sight upon her. Or perhaps--for he saw her shudder--she
was mutely calling the sunlit lake on which her eyes rested, the blue
sky, the smiling summer scene, to witness against this foul cruelty,
this dark wickedness.

But it seemed that he deceived himself. For when she turned her face to
him again, though it was still colourless, it was hard and set.

"You must sign," she said. "You must sign the paper."

His parched lips opened, but he did not answer. He was as one struck
dumb.

"You must sign!" she repeated insistently. "Do you hear? You must
sign!"

Still he did not answer; he only looked at her with eyes of infinite
reproach. The pity of it! The pity of i