right to be near you--to share your fortunes and your misfortunes. Our
love didn't begin as little loves do. It sha'n't end that way."

"If I thought--" his voice was very deep in its earnestness--"that
anything could mean an end of our love, I couldn't make a fight whether
you were here or elsewhere. I think our love will outlast all battles. I
want you to go."

"And if I do go," she demanded with a gaze of questioning which demanded
a truthful answer, "will you swear, by whatever is holiest and means
most to you, that you will cable me at the first intimation of storm?"

For a while he stood silent and his features were trouble-stamped; then
he took both her hands and their eyes met. Slowly he bowed his assent.
"I swear it," he told her, "by my love for you, but if I read the signs
aright the time is not quite that close at hand."

In these days Hamilton Burton's secret service was preternaturally
active. Less of the Titan's affairs passed through the hands of Carl
Bristoll. He could be implicitly trusted, but called on only for honest
service. More went through Tarring and Ruferton and Hendricks--who
questioned no motives.

After two months Mary returned, and when she met the gaze of Jefferson
Edwardes she read in it the struggle which his fight against his heart's
clamorous insistence had cost him. "I have thought of little else since
I went away," she told him, "and I have decided that either I am worthy
to stand with you in whatever comes to you, or I am not worthy to be
your wife at all. Hamilton hurled his threat at us and we, like a pair
of timid children, let him frighten us. In this as in everything else he