He made a move, as though he would get out of his chair, but suddenly he sat down again and with a gesture swift but light he put his hand over hers. Their eyes meeting were as startled as though they had run into each other in an unexpected place. She could not doubt, seeing his eyes, that he was as unprepared as she for the impulse that he unthinkingly followed. But he did not move his hand away, and Megan looked down at it. The pressure was so slight she scarcely felt it, but as she looked at it a tingle of repulsion ran from his fingers up her arm, a repulsion definite enough to be an actual shudder of pain. It ebbed gradually, drained off, and a counter-current of magnetism took its place. This flowed more deliberately, expanding into slow heat, setting in motion a vibration of the blood which hummed in her ears like a shell held against them. A delicate, dim anæsthesia settled over her like a cloud, her pupils dilated a little, her muscles relaxed. She felt herself slipping loosely toward something that awaited her. The weakness that drew her toward it made her feel it must be evil, yet it could not be so simple as that. It was at once familiar and strange, compelling and repellent, eternal and yet it passed from her like a breath. Megan jerked her hand away and held it tightly with her other hand as though it had been touched by fire. She breathed in astonished little gasps, startled as much by the rescue as by the danger. Her salvation seemed to have come from without and to be miraculous. She faced the General coldly and said as though some one else had prompted her: "What did you finally do about Mah-li?" She caught only a last glow on the General's face before it darkened into obstinacy. He did not answer. He leaned back in his chair and tapped on the table with his fingers. "What a pity," he said so low she could scarcely catch the words. "For a moment then you were as lovely as you were meant to be." But Megan insisted. "Where is Mah-li now?" After a moment's silence, the General looked at her as coldly as she at him. "She is probably dead," he said in his harsh official voice. "Probably dead! You don't mean you----?" "She allied herself with Communists. I allowed her to share their punishment." "You did that! But you couldn't have done that when you knew how I felt! I can't believe it of you, you couldn't have done that!" Megan was suddenly thrown again into a state of inner disorder. It was quite true that she could not believe it of him. He had always seemed to her so deeply vulnerable. Even in moments like those just past, when his influence over her had been most powerful, there had always seemed to be in him the germ of defeat. And now he had proved himself impervious, adamant. "Yes, I did just that," he said.