passionately was there beside him. His thoughts had been so full of her, nothing but her, and now--

"Oh, come! please come; he is ill. I know he is ill."

"Yes! I am coming," he said with an effort at self-control. "Where is he--in your room?"

Then, with his arm round her, they went back through the silent house together. Those two alone. Yet not, it seemed to her, so much alone as when they stood at last with that drunken figure lying on the floor between them. She knew the truth at once in his quick exclamation, and then everything under sun and stars seemed to slip away and leave them face to face. "Eustace and she." "Eustace and me." The low rush of the waves caught the refrain and repeated it ceaselessly.

"Don't be alarmed; you had better go away."

She heard the words as in a dream, scarcely recognizing the voice in its harsh passion. "Stay, he shall not remain here; not here in your room." Then she felt his hands grip hers, and the voice rang with fierce resentment.

"Maud! Maud! that this should have come to you--to you of all people. By heaven, it is too much. I will not bear it."

She laughed suddenly and broke from him. "You mean that he has taken too much whiskey. Well! plenty of men do that, and you others think--think none--none the worse." Then she broke down, flinging her arms across the bed by which she had been standing. "Oh, my God! what shall I do? what shall I do?"

Her outburst calmed him.

"Go into the other room, dear; I will call some one."

She turned on him as she knelt like a wild animal at bay.

"No! not the servants! no one shall know. I will not have it. Let me help. I am quite strong."

"Do you think I'd let you touch him?" he burst out. "Go! I'll manage."

She crept away, cowed by his vehemence, overcome by the desire to obey which subdues most women when the command is from one they love. Back to the fire she had left so short a time ago. It was dull now, but a touch sent the responsive flames leaping up the chimney. Would any amount of care restore that confidence in herself which but an hour ago had defied fate? Eustace and she--Eustace and me. What evil chance was this?

She started from a maze of confused fear at his knock at her door.

"A light, please. You have no bed here, and none of the other rooms are fit for you to-night; so I have brought this. I had to leave him--there."

"Why should you trouble?" she asked drearily, with lack-lustre eyes on his burden of blankets and pillows. "I can so easily sit up; it must be near morning now."

He gave her a look so full of passionate adoration that her eyes fell before it.

"Do you think I am going to let you suffer one little bit--one atom of discomfort because of him? No, that shall not be; you shall never suffer."

"How can you help it?"

"How can you ask? We may have made a mistake, Maud; perhaps we hav'n't God knows. But if we have, why then--" He came over to where she was standing and took her hands in his. So they stood, those two alone, with nothing between them save a conscience which could be turned aside; every barrier raised by the world broken down by a strange fate, by a mere turn of the tide.

"Good-night, dear," he said, stooping to kiss her.

She made no reply, no protest; perhaps in her heart of hearts she knew that he said the truth. That if it was a mistake, why then--

The waves caught up that refrain also, as she lay with wide, sleepless eyes on the little camp-bed with which his care had provided her. "It is a mistake--you shall not suffer--it is a mistake--you shall not suffer."

III

When she woke next morning, a be-capped and be-aproned upper housemaid was bringing in her early cup of tea.

"Yes, milady, we 'ave hall come. Mr. 'Ooper 'e 'ave come too, milady. Indeed, if it 'adn't bin for Mr. 'Ooper, we should 'ave bin picking hup cattle in that horful Minch till hevenin'; but 'e took it on 'imself to tell the capting as master would willin' pay hextra for us to come as quick as might be. And thankful we was, milady, for some of us mightn't 'ave lived to see land."

Jane looked as if she certainly would have been one of those to succumb, and Lady Maud gave a sigh of relief.

"Tell Hooper to go to his master,--he wasn't very well last night,--and tell Josephine I shall breakfast in my room."

"Mr. 'Ooper 'ave gone to master," replied Jane in a voice which implied that the reminder was unnecessary; "and if you please, milady, Capting Weeks 'e 'ave come too. We picked 'im up with some cattle in a boat from some place as begins with an 'Hoich.'"

Lady Maud gave another sigh of relief. The sand-bags of civilization were a great protection after all; and if Captain Weeks had come, Eustace would go out shooting with him. That would give her a whole day to face the situation. Honestly, she thought far more of possible difficulties with him than with her husband. The shock had been terrible at the time, but perhaps, after all, it was an isolated offence. Heaps of men in society got drunk decently out of sight of their legal womenkind, and no one thought-- The recurrence of the phrase she had used the night before made her pause and hide her face in the pillow in sudden horror at herself and him. No! without going so far as that, one could still be rational. Edward was devoted to her, and if a wife by her influence made a better man of her husband, wherein lay the degradation? Last night--great heavens! what had come over her last night? She had been taken by surprise, placed in conditions which no one could possibly have foreseen, dragged by main force from every shelter. Her face burnt as she remembered, and yet how natural it had been! Natural and therefore absurd, ridiculous. To-day, however, was different, and so the little pencilled note from Eustace, which Josephine brought in with the breakfast, received no reply save a message to say she was perfectly well and hoped he would look after Captain Weeks, if Mr. Wilson was not able to go out. A bold parry, which made Eustace Gordon set his teeth.

Yes! to-day was different; a new heaven and a new earth. The very house transformed; for when she came down to lunch, the drawing-room was full of tables, screens, photographs, and ferns, while in the dining-room the butler stood ready to remove the silver covers, and so let loose the pent-up energies of two footmen who, with bent heads, seemed waiting for some one to say grace. Mr. Gordon, the report ran, had taken Captain Weeks to the Carbost beat, and would not be back till late. Her ladyship was to open any telegram which might come, as it would relate to the yacht. Mr. Wilson had gone to shoot rock-pigeon with the head keeper. The professor was exploring, and begged her ladyship not to wait lunch for him. So said the butler gravely as he filled her glass. Through the window she could see the Atlantic guiltless of a white feather, and her own courage rose with the outlook. As she strolled about the heathery knolls after lunch, a boy on a pony appeared with the expected telegram. "Started, should be with you to-morrow." So that was an end of one trouble. Then Cynthia Strong and some others were to come by the next boat. Will Lockhart was cruising about the coast and might look in on them at any time. There would be no more solitude; not even to-day, since there across the moor