"I--I have been afraid," she said simply, "for so many endless days! So many long white nights I I thought at times I should go mad at the horror of it! And when I heard that you were here, near me, in Jerez, I decided to risk all. And so I--I came with Maria, who knows the way," she nodded toward the other figure which had withdrawn into the shadows, "to--to see you." "To see me?" he repeated in a low voice, as one cons a difficult lesson. "You risked all, to see me?" She nodded, and raised her eyes to his. "But if you are not glad to see me?" She strove gently to disengage herself. He held her fast. At the moment, as if the heavens had opened wide, a great light broke in upon him. He stared at the face lying against his shoulder, flushed, eager, incredulous. Her soft eyelids were closed. Love lay upon them like a dream, and upon the faintly smiling lips. Her breath mounted to his nostrils like delicate incense. He bent lower and lower. "Open your eyes, darling!" he entreated. She obeyed--their lips met. He kissed her again. A slight sound came from the shadows. Doris broke from him, breathless, but unashamed, a new-found joy in her eyes. "I had almost forgot!" she exclaimed. "I came to tell you something--something important." Cord laughed. "You have told it already!" he said. "You have been chanting wonderful, thrilling, cosmic things to me the last ten minutes!" He sat down and drew her beside him on the bench. "Tell me--everything," he said gravely. She eased herself within the circle of his arm. "First, I wish you to take a message to my aunt. Tell her I am well and happy--now!" "Lady Dinsmore?" he asked in surprise. "Is she not with you?" She shook her head. "Aunt Patricia is in Biarritz," she replied in a low tone. "I--I am with my father." Fear had crept into her voice again. "That is what I came to tell you," she continued. "My aunt does not understand--she would have me desert my father. But I shall stay with him to the end." "And--Poltavo?" Van Ingen recalled her letter, and jealousy started up within him. "Count Poltavo is with us--at present," she answered in a constrained voice. "How long he will remain----" "Tell me everything, darling!" he pleaded. "I can tell you--nothing!" she said passionately, her breast heaving. "Save only that I shall be glad, glad, when this terrible search is completed. So many lives----" For the first time, she broke down completely, and turning from him, sobbed bitterly, her face hidden in her hands. She rocked back and forth in a paroxysm of grief. He bent over her, in an agony of distress, and put his arms about her. "Cord!" The voice came to him, strangled with sobs. "Darling?" his mouth was close to her lips. "Promise me that you will give it up?" "No." "But they will kill you--too!" she moaned. "Not me!" he said cheerfully. "Not after this!" He raised her tearful face to his. "Tell me, at least, where a letter may find you."