"It is fate," he said to himself, as he stood there gazing down at the beautiful head with its glossy hair, the curve of the creamy neck, and the arms and hands whiter than the ivory over which they strayed. So sudden--so wondrous. The only thing in his thoughts had been that he might be near her for a time, and hear her words, while now they were alone in the soft, dim light of the drawing room, and the touch of her fingers on those keys sent that dreamy, sensuous, glorious music thrilling through every fibre of his body. Friend? How could he be friend? He loved her passionately, and, cold as she might ever be, however she might trample upon his feelings, she must always be the same to him--his ideal--his love--the only woman in the world who could ever stir his pulses. And so silent now--so beautiful? If she had spoken in her customary formal, friendly way, it would have broken the spell. But she could not. The chain was as fast round her at that moment, though she longed to speak. She could not, for she knew how he loved her; how his touch stirred each pulse; that this man was all in all to her--the one she loved, and she could not turn and flee. At last, by a tremendous effort, she raised her eyes to his to speak indifferently and break through this horrible feeling of dread and lassitude, but as their eyes met, her hands dropped from the keys, as, with a passionate cry, he took a step forward, caught her to his breast, and she lay for the moment trembling there, and felt his lips pressed to her in a wild, passionate kiss. "Myra!" he panted; "all that must be as a dream. You are not his. It is impossible. I love you--my own! my own!" His words thrilled her, but their import roused in her as well those terrible thoughts of the tie which bound her; and, with a cry of anger and despair, she thrust him away. "Go!" she cried; "it is an insult. You must be mad." Then, with the calm majesty of an injured woman proud of her honour and her state, she said coldly, as she pointed to the door: "Mr Stratton, you have taken a cruel advantage of my loneliness here. I am Mr Barron's wife. Go, sir. We are friends no longer and can never meet again." CHAPTER TWENTY. THE MORNING PAPER. No one by any stretch of the imagination could have called the admiral a good reader. In fact, a person might very well have been considered to be strictly within the limits of truth if he had declared the old officer to be the worst reader he ever heard. But so it was, from the crookedness of human nature, that he always made a point of reading every piece of news in the paper which he considered interesting, aloud, for the benefit of those with him at the breakfast table.