She lifted her face at last. The torture was eating into her soul. It
was more than she could bear. All the tender words he had spoken, the
caresses he had lavished upon her, were as burning darts that pierced
her whichever way she turned. Her surrender had been so free, so
absolute, and in return he had left her in the dark. He had gone his
careless way without a single thought for all the fierce devotion she
had poured out to him. It had only appealed to him while the mood
lasted. And now he had had enough of it. He had gone.

The murmur of the summer sea came to her as she lay, and she thought of
the Death Current. Why--ah, why--had it been cheated of its prey? She
shivered violently as the memory of that awful struggle in deep waters
came to her. She had been saved, how she scarcely realised, though deep
within her she knew--she knew!

Her burning eyes fell upon the little wild white roses on the shelf. Why
had he brought them to her? Why had he chosen them? She felt as if they
held a message for her, but it was a message she did not dare to read.
And then again she quivered as the dread memory of that night swept over
her anew, and the eyes of flaming blue that had looked into hers.

Somewhere--somewhere outside herself, it seemed to her--a voice was
speaking, very articulate and persistent, and she could not shut out the
words it uttered. She lacked the strength.

"I always knew," it said, and it averred it over and over again, "as he
loved you like mad."

Love! Love! But what was Love? Was any man capable of it? Was it ever