distances. The girl had been roused out of sleep; from her understanding
the curtains had been flung back so that she might see. How long would
it last, this simple, unsoiled story of two lives?

Orlando reached out his hand to put his cup back upon the tray. As her
own hand was extended to take it, her fingers touched his. Then her face
flushed, and a warm cloud seemed to bedim her eyes. There flashed into
her mind the deep, overwhelming fact that for three long years a rough,
heavy hand had held her captive by day, by night, in a pitiless
ownership. She got to her feet suddenly; her breath came quickly, and
she turned towards the door as though she meant to go.

At that instant Li Choo slid softly into the room, caught up the tray,
poised it on his three fingers over his head and said: "Old Mazaline, he
come. Be queeck!"

They heard the heavy footsteps of Joel Mazarine coming into the hall-way
just below.

The old man, as though moved by some uncanny instinct, had come back from
One Mile Spring by a roundabout trail. As the Chinaman came out upon the
landing at the top of the stairs, Joel appeared at the bottom, in the
doorway which gave upon the staircase. Two or three steps down shuffled
the Chinaman; then, as it were by accident, he stumbled and fell, the
tray with the beautiful china crashing down to the feet of Joel Mazarine,
followed by the tumbling, chirruping Li Choo.

Oriental duplicity had made no wrong reckoning. The old man fell back
into the hall-way from the crashing china and tumbling Oriental, who
plunged out into the hall-way muttering and begging pardon, cursing his