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his hand. He meant to kill himself. I stopped him. I hadn’t the faintest thought in my mind of any consequences to myself. Even if that thought had come to me, I’d have acted in the same way. He was in great trouble—in desperate need of help. I did what I could—that’s all. Read this.”

She handed him the letter she had just received, and in silence Rodney Marsh read it from beginning to end.

“At any rate, it shows he loves you,” he said at last.

“I hope he does, for I love him.”

He looked up at her again—with scowling, jealous brows.

“No, not in the way you seem to think,” she went on. “My love for him is like the affection which I think he has for me. It has nothing in it which one may not rightly feel for the husband of another woman.”

There was a long silence between them, and at last he rose.

“Are you going to stay on here—in Wairiri?”

“Certainly. Why not? There’s no reason for me to run away.”

She had risen too, and now moved slowly towards the door beside him.

“You were going to be honest with me, to tell me everything in your heart,” he said abruptly.

“I’ve tried to be honest.”

“Do you...love me?”

“You’ve no right to ask me that.”

He turned suddenly, and with a queer, inarticulate sound that was almost a groan took her in his arms, holding her closely as he pressed his face down against her smooth white neck. For a few seconds