If only he had not hesitated, if only he had turned the face to him then and there and closed the gold-flecked eyes with kisses.

But instead he held her crushed to the point of agony against him with his mouth upon the sweetness of her neck, leaving the gold-flecked eyes to open wider, and still wider as they stared straight into the shrubbery around, where the flaming poinsettia flowers looked black under the stars.

“Beloved!  Leonie, listen——­”

“Don’t! please don’t!”

She pulled herself free and knelt on one knee upon the bench, with both hands outstretched against him; and he, not grasping the psychological points of the moment, sat down dumbly beside her, instead of mastering her physically, or mentally on the spot as it behoved him to do.

Heavens! what fools some men can be with that jungle animal woman within their hands.

“Leonie, listen dear, I want you to marry me, dear—­soon!”

The words fell upon Leonie’s clamouring soul as dismally as the raindrops of your childhood fell upon the window-pane when you were waiting to start for a picnic.

“You don’t know what you are saying!” she replied.  “It is criminal even to think of such a thing—­mad as I believe I am—­mad as I shall be when I end in a padded room!”

Her voice was barely a whisper, but it cut like slate on slate, and her eyes stared straight ahead as she continued speaking rapidly, almost uncontrollably, and yet with a certain air of relief as though glad to give vent in words to the horror which pressed upon her brain.

“Although you pretend it is only sleep-walking,” she went on, heedless of his efforts to interrupt her, “you know perfectly well there is something wrong with me.  You know it, so did your father, so does Auntie, people here are whispering it.  Yes! they are, they are,” she reiterated, “and they are right.  Something more than just being frightened by my ayah happened to me in India all those years ago, oh! you know it did, I’m under a spell or bewitched—­sometimes I have a—­a—­” she struck her forehead with her open hand as she crouched back upon the bench like some animal at bay—­“a—­oh! my God—­you see—­I cannot even say what it is.  Can’t you tell me, Jan?  Can’t you help me? You—­you say you love me—­you say you have found a clue—­for pity’s sake follow it, follow it and save me—­you—­you——­”

“Leonie, look at me!”

Something in his voice forced her to look at him, and her eyes shone like flat pieces of opalescent glass so contracted were the pupils, but they widened even as she looked into the steadfast grey eyes, and her mouth relaxed into the shadow of a smile.

Good heavens, why didn’t he take her in his arms and smother her up against his heart, or put a bag over her head, or failing the bag, put his hand before her eyes?

What fools some men can be with the woman they love within their reach.