seemed to her that by very silence she had made herself party to that s

ogies for having followed her from the piazz

mphasis, "I am glad you have come to me here. I have some

and stood

a lurking innuendo. It is difficult to reply to such a thing. You

directness," he answered, after a pause. "I am a

of the dinner y

myself on my skill as a raconte

ciful than most-that by that story you intended to convey, an insinuation

lendid type of womanhood that he had determined to make his own. And that it was now displayed in defence of the man whose weakness he despised

word," she

rdinary importance to my tale,"

that there

such a compliment to my own subtlety. May I ask, in my tur

come of the trial in your tale was due to the fact that its chief character, though no one realised it, was under th

"You are the only one who h

I understand! You intended

ed, with aggra

you not?" Her pent-up anger was

dy in his great arms, to rain kisses on that vivid, scornful mouth with its short upper lip, and

e a whip-lash and involuntarily Craig's big fists clen

his step as he came quickly along the grassy path, nor had Sevier guessed the situation till those pregnant sentences sent the blood from his heart. He had thought the secret of his failure unsuspected. T

rition had come at a fateful moment. Then his glance passed to Echo. "

ckly up the path towa

Her anger had faded out and her heart was hammering at the thought that Harry had heard, in her defence of

said in a m

you hadn't. Yet I couldn't help it! That ridiculous slur! Bu

pt gesture. "Wait. I want t

ou shall not! I need no ass

a deserved contempt for the whisper of malice. But the look and sneer had flicked him on the raw, had called to some element of naked honesty deep within him. In that second he had know

hat! Yet what Craig wished y

gly. "True!" Her lips formed

of liquor. But for that I shou

Why, I never saw you in-that condition in

r helped me to win my cases. I thought I had made it my slave when it had made itse

urt was too keen. She only heard the high-built structures of her own ideals c

ery little what others thought. But-you-I care what you think. I never knew how much till now, when I have thro

had been so superior to the blandishments of the smaller vices. Others had failed and fallen; only he had remained on his pedestal, a type of brilliant accomplishment. She saw now his success as unenduring, fictitious, his talents besmirched with the vice that was most hateful to her. "Not the first time, nor the second, nor the third!" In their own circle she had seen the d

as not the Sevier that had kissed her hand who spoke now, but one w

st yourself?

y he had known no breath of the periodic craving. But now, curiously, he felt his mouth growing all at once arid and dry with the old slinking thirst. Coul

ther drop upon his lips-never, never! Not for the sake of

eaned down and kissed them. Then, wi