than he regretted her resentment.

"How far would you go to prove your gratitude?" he continued.

"I do not know," said Leam, the weary sigh repeated.

"Would you marry for gratitude where you did not love?"

"No," she answered in a low voice.

"Would you marry for fear, then, if not for gratitude or love? If you
were in the power of a man, would you marry that man to save yourself
from all chance of betrayal? I have known women who would. Are you one
of them?"

Again he passed his hands over her head and across and down her face.
His voice sounded sweet and soft as honey: it was like a cradle-song
to a tired child. Leam's eyes drooped heavily. A mist seemed stealing
up before her through which everything was transformed--by which the
sunshine became as a golden web wherein she was entangled, and the
shadows as lines of the net that held her--where the songs of the
birds melted into distant harmonies echoing the sleepy sweetness of
that soft compelling voice, and where the earth was no longer solid,
but a billowy cloud whereon she floated rather than stood. A strange
sense of isolation possessed her. It was as if she were alone in the
universe, with some all-powerful spirit who was questioning her of the
secret things of life, and whose questions she must answer. Mr. Gryce
was not the tenant of Lionnet, as the world knew him, but a mild yet
awful god, in whose presence she stood revealed, and who was reading
her soul, like her past, through and through. She was before him there
as a criminal before a judge--discovered, powerless--and all attempt
at concealment was at an end.

"Tell me what you know," said the soft and honeyed voice, ever
sweeter, ever more soothing, more deadening to her senses.

Leam's whole form drooped, yielded, submitted. In another moment she
would have made full confession, when suddenly the harsh cry of
a frightened bird near at hand broke up the sleepy harmonies and
scattered the compelling charm. Leam started, flung back her head,
opened her eyes wide and fixed them full on her inquisitor. Then she
stiffened herself as if for a personal resistance, passed her hands
over her face as if she were brushing it from cobwebs, and said in a
natural voice, offended, haughty, cold, "I did not hear what you said.
I was nearly asleep."

"Wake, then," said Mr. Gryce, making a movement as if he too were
brushing away cobwebs from her face. After a pause he took both her
hands in his. "Child," he s