On the flat table of the hill where Brady had built his bungalow were scattered clumps of golden birch, and in the shelter of one of the nearer clumps was a bench, to which Keith drew Mary Josephine.  Thereafter for many minutes he spoke his plans.  Mary Josephine’s cheeks grew flushed.  Her eyes shone with excitement and eagerness.  She thrilled to the story he told her of what they would do in those wonderful mountains of gold and mystery, just they two alone.  He made her understand even more definitely that his safety and their mutual happiness depended upon the secrecy of their final project, that in a way they were conspirators and must act as such.  They might start for the west tonight or tomorrow, and she must get ready.

There he should have stopped.  But with Mary Josephine’s warm little hand clinging to his and her beautiful eyes shining at him like liquid stars, he felt within him an overwhelming faith and desire, and he went on, making a clean breast of the situation that was giving them the opportunity to get away.  He felt no prick of conscience at thought of Miriam Kirkstone’s affairs.  Her destiny must be, as he had told McDowell, largely a matter of her own choosing.  Besides, she had McDowell to fight for her.  And the big fat brother, too.  So without fear of its effect he told Mary Josephine of the mysterious liaison between Miriam Kirkstone and Shan Tung, of McDowell’s suspicions, of his own beliefs, and how it was all working out for their own good.

Not until then did he begin to see the changing lights in her eyes.  Not until he had finished did he notice that most of that vivid flush of joy had gone from her face and that she was looking at him in a strained, tense way.  He felt then the reaction.  She was not looking at the thing as he was looking at it.  He had offered to her another woman’s tragedy as their opportunity, and her own woman’s heart had responded in the way that has been woman’s since the dawn of life.  A sense of shame which he fought and tried to crush took possession of him.  He was right.  He must be right, for it was his life that was hanging in the balance.  Yet Mary Josephine could not know that.

Her fingers had tightened about his, and she was looking away from him.  He saw now that the color had almost gone from her face.  There was the flash of a new fire in her yes.

“And that was why she was nervous and pale, with sometimes a frightened look in her eyes,” she spoke softly, repeating his words.  “It was because of this Chinese monster, Shan Tung—­because he has some sort of power over her, you say—­because—­”

She snatched her hand from his with a suddenness that startled him.  Her eyes, so beautiful and soft a few minutes before, scintillated fire.  “Derry, if you don’t fix this heathen devil—­I will!”

She stood up before him, breathing quickly, and he beheld in her not the soft, slim-waisted little goddess of half an hour ago, but the fiercest fighter of all the fighting ages, a woman roused.  And no longer fear, but a glory swept over him.  She was Conniston’s sister, and she was Conniston.  Even as he saw his plans falling about him, he opened his arms and held them out to her, and with the swiftness of love she ran into them, putting her hands to his face while he held her close and kissed her lips.