It means so much to me to escape--what I have no right to escape, I can hardly believe it." "I am quite sure," replied Martin Hillyard.
Joan breathed a long, fluttering sigh of relief.

She sat up as though a weight had been loosed from her shoulders.

The trouble lifted from her face.
"You need not call upon me at all ?" "No." "I don't want to shirk--any more," she insisted.

"I should not hesitate." "I know that, Joan," he said with a smile.

She looked out over the gardens to the great line of hills, dim and pleasant as fairyland in the silver haze of the moonlight.