what to do. In the
softest possible tone and hardly above her breath she commanded: "George,
come to yourself."

Her gentleness had the effect of evening light. I was soothed. Her
confidence in her own power touched me profoundly. I suppose my love was
too great for madness to get hold of me. I can't say that I passed to a
complete calm, but I became slightly ashamed of myself. I whispered:

"No, it was not from affection, it was for the love of you that I brought
him here. That imbecile H. was going to send him to Tolosa."

"That Jacobin!" Dona Rita was immensely surprised, as she might well have
been. Then resigned to the incomprehensible: "Yes," she breathed out,
"what did you do with him?"

"I put him to bed in the studio."

How lovely she was with the effort of close attention depicted in the
turn of her head and in her whole face honestly trying to approve. "And
then?" she inquired.

"Then I came in here to face calmly the necessity of doing away with a
human life. I didn't shirk it for a moment. That's what a short
twelvemonth has brought me to. Don't think I am reproaching you, O blind
force! You are justified because you _are_. Whatever had to happen you
would not even have heard of it."

Horror darkened her marvellous radiance. Then her face became utterly
blank with the tremendous effort to understand. Absolute silence reigned
in the house. It seemed to me that everything had been said now that
mattered in the world; and that the world itself had reached its ultimate
stage, had reached its appointed end of an eternal, phantom-like silence.
Suddenly Dona Rita raised a warning finger. I had heard nothing and
shook my head; but she nodded hers and murmured excitedly,

"Yes, yes, in the fencing-room, as before."

In the same way I answered her: "Impossible! The door is locked and
Therese has the key." She asked then in the most cautious manner,

"Have you seen Therese to-night?"

"Yes," I confessed without misgiving. "I left her making up the fellow's
bed when I came in here."

"The bed of the Jacobin?" she said in a peculiar tone as if she were
humouring a lunatic.

"I think I had better tell you he is a Spaniard--that he seems to know
you from early days. . . ." I glanced at her face, it was extremely
tense, apprehensive. For myself I had no longer any doubt as to the man
and I hoped she would reach the correct conclusion herself. But I
believe she was too distracted and