"There isn't anything in the world," he told her quietly, "which has the power to tempt me from doing the thing which I think best. I cannot promise that it will be always the thing which seems right to this committee of men," he added, touching the envelope with his forefinger. "I cannot promise you that, but it should not worry you. You yourself are different. It is my hope that soon you will understand me better. I think that when that time comes you will cease to fear." The light in her face was wonderful. "Oh, I want to!" she murmured. "I want to understand you better. There hasn't been anything in life to me like the sound of your name, like the thought of you, since first I understood. Perhaps I am as bad as Aaron," she sighed. "I, too, alas! am your hopeless slave." He moved a step nearer. This time she made no effort to retreat. Once more she was trembling a little, but her face was soft and sweet. All the pallor, the hard lines, the suffering seemed to have passed miraculously out of it. A soul--a woman's soul--was shining at him out of her eyes. It wasn't her physical self that spoke--in a way he knew that. Yet she was calling to him, calling to him with all she possessed, calling to him as to her master. He succeeded in persuading her to eat and drink, and she departed, a little grim and unpleased, in the motor car which Mr. Foley had insisted upon ordering round. Then Maraton strolled into the garden to take his delayed coffee. Elisabeth came noiselessly across the turf to his side. "I hope there was nothing disturbing in your letters?" she said. "Not very," he replied. "It is only what I expected." "Every one," she continued, "has been admiring your secretary. We all thought that she had such a beautiful face." "She is not my secretary," he explained. "She came in place of her brother, who met with a slight accident just as he was starting." Somehow or other, he fancied that Elisabeth was pleased. "I didn't think that it was like you to have a woman secretary," she remarked. He smiled as he replied: "Miss Thurnbrein is a very earnest worker and a real humanitarian. She has written articles about woman labour in London." "Julia Thurnbrein!" Elisabeth exclaimed. "Yes, I have read them. If only I had known that that was she! I should have liked so much to have talked to her. Do you think that she would come and see me, or let me come and see her? We really do want to understand these things, and it seems to me, somehow, that people like Julia Thurnbrein, and all those who really understand, keep away from us wilfully. They won't exchange thoughts. They believe that we are their natural enemies. And we aren't, you know. There isn't any one I'd like to meet and talk with so much as Julia Thurnbrein." He nodded sympathetically.