Part 102

She was pink as the loveliest La France now.

"You ought not to talk to me in that way."

"Don't I know it?" Beauvayse groaned out. He turned over upon his face in the grass, and lay quite still. A shuddering sigh heaved the strong young shoulders from time to time, and his hands clenched and tore at the grasses, "Don't I know it? Lynette, Lynette!"

She longed to touch the close-cropped golden head. Unseen by him, she stretched out a hand timidly and drew it back again, unsatisfied.

"Lynette, Lynette! I'm paying at this moment for every rotten act of headlong folly I've ever committed in my life, and you're making me!" He caught at a fold of her skirt and drew it to him and hid his face in it, kissing it again and again. It was one of the caresses she had been used herself to offer where she most loved. To find yourself being worshipped instead of worshipping is an experience. She touched the golden head now, as the Mother had often touched her own. He caught the hand.

"No, no!" She grew deadly pale, and shivered. "Please let me go. I--I did not----"

She tried to release the hand. He raised himself, and she started at the warm, quivering pressure of his beautiful mouth, scarcely shaded by the young, wheat-golden moustache, upon her cool, sweet flesh. She snatched her hand away with a faint cry, and sprang to her feet, and her cheeks blazed anew as she turned to go.

"You want to leave me? You would punish me like that--just for a kissed hand?"

He barred her way, taller than herself, though he stood upon the sloping lower level. She had learned always to be true in thought and speech.

"I--don't--like to be touched." She said it without looking at him.

"You put your hand upon my head. Why did you do it if you hate me so?"

"I--don't hate you!"

"I love you! My rose, my dove, my star, my joy! Queen of all the girls that ever I saw or dreamed of, say that you could love me back again!"

"I--must not."

Her bosom heaved. He could see the delicate white throat vibrating with the tumultuous beating of her heart.

"Why not? Nobody has told you anything against me? Nobody has said to you that I have no right to love you?" he demanded.

"No."

"Look at me."

The golden hazel, dark-lashed eyes she shyly turned to his were full of exquisite, melting tenderness. Her lips parted to speak, and closed again. He leaned towards her--hung over her, his own lips irresistibly attracted to those sweetest ones....

"Lord Beauvayse----" she began, and stopped.

He begged:

"Please, not the duffing title, but 'Beauvayse' only. Tell me you love me. Tell me that you'll wait until I'm able to come to you and say: 'My beloved, the way's clear. Be my wife to-morrow!'"

His tone was masterful. His ardent eyes thrilled her. She murmured:

"Beauvayse ...!"

She swayed to him, as a young palm sways before a breeze, and he caught her in his strenuous, young embrace, and held her firmly against him. Her old terrors wakened, and dreadful, unforgettable things stirred in the darkness, where they had lain hidden, and lifted hydra-heads. She cried out wildly, and strove to thrust him from her, but he held her close. There was a shaking among the tangled growths of bush and cactus high up on the opposite bank, and Lynette realised that Beauvayse's arms no longer held her. She leaned back against the boulder, panting and trembling, and saw Beauvayse's revolver glitter in his steady hand, as something came crashing down through the tangled jungle upon the edge of the farther shore, and a heavily-built man in khâki pushed through the shoulder-high growth of reeds, and leaped upon a rock that had a swirl of water round it. It was Saxham.

"Miss Mildare!" called the strong, vibrating voice.

She faltered:

"It--it is Dr. Saxham."