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DR FERNANDEZ.
37

to play the hypocrite. I saw that you were nearly as world-weary as I am, and my heart went out to you in sympathy when I first met you, although I could not show it, for, as I have told you, I was very closely watched and environed; besides, a plainer warning would have only hastened on your doom, for my husband allows no one whom he suspects, to escape. At Gibraltar, Malta, Port Said, Suez and Colombo they were prepared to blow up the ship at a moment."

Philip was thrilling still, but no longer with fear. The woman's soft whispering had entered his soul and filled it with a glow of ecstasy such as he had not felt since he was a boy. Death seemed to be nothing now while that ardour of life pulsed through him, and she sat so quietly, prepared to share that fate beside him. It was not a question of love as men and women regard that passion. There was no desire for the body in his heart. A clearer flame burned now within him. It seemed as if their spirits had already leapt together and joined in an inseparable embrace. They were about to pass from this life which both had found so empty of pleasure and enter the other, like twin souls. He clasped the slender hand that lay supinely on her knee within his with a nervous grasp, and looked into her shining eyes with eyes as bright.