He gave it no answer, but, turning to her, kindled into the man whom she was so proud to show as her capture,--a man far off from Stephen Holmes.

Brilliant she called him,--frank, winning, generous.

She thought she knew him well; held him a slave to her fluttering hand.

Being proud of her slave, she let the hand flutter down now somehow with some flowers it held until it touched his hard fingers, her cheek flushing into rose.

The nerveless, spongy hand,--what a death-grip it had on his life! He did not look back once at the motionless, dusty figure on the road.