“It couldn’t have been fancy. I am not fanciful. Arthur, don’t go! Don’t go!” He stopped and looked at her, and in his eyes was that which strangely moved her, stilling her entreaty, overwhelming her fear, banishing every thought in her heart but the one great rapture of her soul as it leaped to his. So for a long moment they stood, then his arm went round her. He turned aside. “We will go to the Stones,” he said, “and leave these banshees to look after themselves. It was probably a goat you saw.” She went with him, almost convinced that he was right and that her fancy had tricked her. She would have gone with him in that moment if all the ghosts of the centuries had awaited them among the Stones. As they passed into the great arena, he uttered a groan, and his arm relaxed and fell. “This is absolute madness,” he said. “I told you before. I am tied. I am a prisoner. I shall never be free.” The iron of despair was in his voice. “Then I will be a prisoner too,” she said. “No—no! Why did that scoundrel send you to me? Why didn’t he come himself?” He flung the words passionately, as though the emotions surging within him were greater than he could control. But she answered him steadfastly, without agitation. “Arthur, listen! He sent me to you because he is ashamed of all that has gone before—and because he wished to make amends. He has gone out of my life. But I have forgiven him, and—some day—I hope you will forgive him too.” “Never!” he said. “Never! I would have killed him with my naked hands if I had had the chance.” She suppressed a shiver at the memory his words called up. “That is not worthy of you. Forgiveness is a greater thing than revenge—oh, so much greater. And love is greater than all. You won’t believe it, but—he was capable of love.” “He was capable of anything,” Arthur said, “except playing a straight game.” “You are wrong,” she said earnestly. “You are wrong. He has played a straight game now in telling you the truth and in sending me to you. He made me come, do you understand? I didn’t want to—I would rather have done anything than come. But he would have come himself if I hadn’t. And so——” “You came to save his life?” suggested Arthur, with a bitter sneer. She answered him with the simplicity that is above bitterness. “I came to save you both.” He looked at her with a certain grimness. “And why didn’t you want to come?” Again with absolute directness she answered him. “Because I knew how it would hurt you to send me away again.” He swung away from her and again she heard him groan. “This is well named the place of sacrifice,” he said. “Do you remember the day I first brought you here? I loved you then, and I knew it was hopeless—utterly hopeless. It is more so than ever now. I can’t go on. I won’t go on. This thing has got to stop. God knows I have fought it. You have got to fight it too,—go on fighting till it dies.” “It will rise again,” she said. His hands clenched. “I’ve never been beaten yet,” he said.