think I have always loved you, even when I seemed to hate you most. And now that you have saved me from a hideous death, oh! my dear, my dear, how can I give you up? No, fly with me at once. We will go to South Africa, where society is freer and healthier than here, and conventional prejudices do not exist. Come, Frank, come ere it is too late."
The miserable man wavered on the couch; he did not love this woman, not at least with any passion deserving the name, but he was in her power. And how, how could he face his lovely innocent Fenella with the consciousness that he was a murderer?
As he still hesitated, there came a resounding knock at the trellised door which made them both start. "The detectives!" whispered Lucille de Vigny, "already; quick, Frank, the back door." But Frank Onslow had not lost all his manliness; he drew himself to his full height with a proud dignity. "Back doors are not exactly in my way, Lucille," he said, "let them take me. I am ready to atone with the last remnant of my miserable, ill-spent life." And the door flew open as he spoke—but it was no detective that entered.
Fenella came in in her pretty light frock, her small cheeks flushed with a now unaccustomed rose tint, and something of the old, merry, mischievous sparkle in her tan-colored hazel eyes, for she had been laughing and talking on the way
