"They are coming to the door, Philip," she panted, straining
against him. "We must not be found like this!"

The voice was booming in the hall again, calling her name, and in
a moment Philip was on his feet raising Josephine to him. Her face
still was white. Her eyes were still on the verge of fear, and as
the steps came nearer he brushed back the warm masses of her hair
and whispered for the twentieth time, as if the words must
convince her: "I love you!" He slipped an arm about her waist, and
Josephine's fingers nervously caught his hand.

Then the door was flung open. Philip knew that it was the master
of Adare House who stood on the threshold--a great, fur-capped
giant of a man who seemed to stoop to enter, and in whose eyes as
they met Philip's there was a wild and half-savage inquiry. Such a
man Philip had not expected to see; awesome in his bulk, a
Thorlike god of the forests, gray-bearded, deep-chested, with
shaggy hair falling out from under his cap, and in whose eyes
there was the glare which Philip understood and which he met
unflinchingly.

For a moment he felt Josephine's fingers grip tighter about his
own; then with a low cry she broke from him, and John Adare opened
his arms to her and crushed his bearded face down to hers as her
arms encircled his neck. In the gloom of the hall beyond them
there appeared for an instant the thin, dark face of Jean Jacques
Croisset. In a flash it had come and gone. In that flash the half-
breed's eyes had met Philip's, and in them was a look that made
the latter take a quick step forward. His impulse was to pass John
Adare and confront Jean in the hall. He held himself back, and