Tula Audenshaw rose from where she had been sitting and walked slowly across the soft ground to the edge of the stream.

"I have another suggestion," Lord Yelverton said at last. "Why do we not, because we are so lucky together, try to find another treasure trove in Yucatan? Surely it is a waste for me to go back to England, while you stay here, when we might be together?"

Tula raised her head to look at him.

"What are you... saying?" she asked in a voice little above a whisper.

"I am saying this," Lord Yelverton answered. He put his arms around her as he spoke and drew her close against him. Then his mouth was on hers. "You are so beautiful, quite unlike anyone I have ever seen before," he said, "and I want you --I want you desperately! You know as well as I do, that I cannot live without you."

He did not wait for her reply but was kissing her again; kissing her with passionate, demanding, possessive kisses which made her his, so that she became a part of him.