She shook her head.

"No, I won't oppose you," she said, in a dead little voice.

"Let me come to you, then," he said. "I should have to come to you if you went to Melbourne or all round the world.' And I should be glad to come," he added whimsically, with the warmth of his old smile coming into his eyes. "I suppose I should be glad to come, if it was in hell."

"But it isn't hell, is it?" she asked, wistfully and a little defiantly.

"Not a bit," he said. "You've got too much pluck in you to spoil. You're as good to me as you were the first time I knew you. Only Easu might have spoiled you."

"And you killed him," she said quickly, half in reproach.

"Would you rather he'd killed me?" he asked.

She looked a long time into his eyes, with that watchful, searching look that used to hurt him. Now it hurt him no more.

She shook her head, saying:

"I'm glad you killed him. I couldn't bear to think of him living on, and sneering—sneering!—I was always in love with you, really."