“Because I couldn’t help myself. It wasn’t my fault. You don’t understand——”

“You had to, do you mean?” she asked.

He made no reply to this: his presence answered for him.

“Oh, go back,” she cried. “You can go back still. If you love me——”

He took her close into one great enfoldment.

The roaring of the burning house, the glare of its great beacon, grew momently more vivid. Then from outside came a yell of voices, and they went to the window.

“They’ve come,” said Peter quietly.

A grinding of the gravel below, shouted orders, a raising of a ladder....

Printed in England by Cassell & Company, Limited, London, E.C.4. F75.1221