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heart drummed hard as ever, but I detected a relaxation of tensed muscles. No effort of acting could have simulated the agony in my voice: Ardatha knew, but she did not speak.
    “I searched the world for you, Ardatha, after you left me in Paris. For weeks I rarely slept. I couldn’t believe, even if you had changed, why you should torture me. And so I thought you must be dead. I came very near to madness. I went to Greece—hoping to die.”
    She looked up at me. To this hour I have no idea what lay beyond the brick arch, what surrounded us as we stood there. But, either I saw her psychically, or some faint light reached the spot; for I knew that there were tears on her lashes.
    “I am sorry,” she whispered. “Because, you must mean—some other Ardatha.”
    Every quaint inflection of that elusive accent, the sympathy in her musical voice, tortured me. I turned my head aside. I could no longer trust myself. She spoke as the Ardatha I adored, the Ardatha I had lost; her pretence, her actions, spoke another language.
    “There is only one Ardatha. I was the fool, to believe in her. Where is Fu-Manchu? Where is Nayland Smith?”
    “Please don’t hurt me.” I had tightened my hold automatically. “I would, indeed, help you if I could. Nayland Smith is my enemy, but you are not my enemy, and I wish you no harm. Only, I tell you that if you stay here you will die—”
    “Where is Nayland Smith? He has never been your enemy. Why do you say such a thing? And don’t mock me because I love you.”
    She was silent for a moment. Those slim curves enclosed by my arms tainted me. One nervous, slender hand stole up and rested on my shoulder.
    “I am not mocking you. You frighten me. I don’t understand. I am very, very sorry for you. I want to save you from danger. But there is some great mistake. You ran after me across Hyde Park tonight, and now, you are here. You tell me”—her voice faltered—“that you love me. How can that be?”
    Her fingers were clutching my shoulder, and I knew, although I kept my head averted, that she was looking up; I knew, too, and wondered if war had driven the whole world mad, that there were tears in her eyes.
    “It has always been, since the first moment I saw you. It will always be—always, Ardatha. Now lead me to Smith—I shall not let you go until we find him.”
    But she clung to me, resisting.
    “No, no! wait—let me try to understand. You say, since the first moment you saw me. The first moment I saw
you
was tonight, when you cried out to me—cried my name—in the Park!”
    “Ardatha!”
    “Yes—you cried out ‘Ardatha’. I looked back, and I saw you. Perhaps I liked you and wished that I knew you. But I did not know you, and your eyes were glaring madly. So I ran. Now—” I suppose, for the whole situation was illusory, dream-line, that my grasp had changed to a caress; I had stooped to kiss her, liar, hypocrite though she might be. I know that her voice, as she trembled in my arms, had thrust out everything else in the world except my blind hopeless love. “No! you dare not!” She dashed her hand against my lips; I kissed her palm, her fingers. “Do you think I am a courtesan? I don’t even know your name!”
    I stood suddenly still, but I did not release her.
    “Ardatha,” I said, “has Dr. Fu-Manchu ordered you to torture me?” At those words I felt a quiver pass through her body. She inhaled a sobbing breath, and was silent. “I loved you—I shall love you always—and you ran away. You sent me no message, no word, even to tell me that you were alive. Now, when I find you, you say that you don’t know my name… Ardatha!”
    She crushed her head against me and burst into passionate tears.
    “I want to believe!” she sobbed; “I want to believe; I cannot understand; but I have no one in all the world to turn to! If it were true, if in some way, I had forgotten, if you were really—” And as I held her, tenderly now, certain words of Nayland Smith’s