narticulately to cease all effort, but spurred
onward because she knew she must not fail.

And gradually as she played there came to her a curious sense of duality,
of something happening that had happened before, of a record repeating
itself. She turned her head, almost expecting to hear a voice speak
softly behind her, almost expecting to hear a mocking echo of the words
unspoken. "Has the Queen no further use for her jester?" No further use!
No further use! Oh, why was she tortured thus? Why, when her whole soul
yearned to forget, was she thus compelled to remember the man whose
brutal passion and insatiable thirst for vengeance had caught and crushed
her heart?

And still she played on as one beneath a spell, while the memory of him
forced the gates of her consciousness and took arrogant possession. She
saw again the swarthy face with its fierce eyes, the haughty smile, which
for her was ever tinged with tenderness. Surely--oh, surely he had loved
her once! She recalled his fiery love-making, and thrilled again to the
eager insistence of his voice, the mastery of his touch. And then she
remembered what they said of him, that women were his slaves, his
playthings, the toys he broke in wantonness and carelessly tossed aside.
She remembered how once in his actual presence she had overheard words
that had made her shrink, a wonder as to who was his latest conquest, the
cynical remark: "Anyone for a change and no one for long is his motto."
What was he doing now, she asked herself, and trembled. He had gone
without word or message of any sort. Her last glimpse of him had been in
that violet glare of lightning, inexpressibly terrible, with tigerish
eyes that threatened her and snarling lips drawn back. Thus--thus had she
seen him many a time since in the long night-watches when she had lain
sleepless and restless, waiting for the dawn.

Some such vision came to her now, forcing itself upon her shrinking
imagination. Vividly there rose before her his harsh face alert, cruel,
cynical, and the sinewy hands that gripped and crushed. And suddenly a
shuddering sense of nausea overcame her. She left the piano as one
seeking refuge from a horror unutterable. Surely this man had never loved
her--was incapable of love! And she had almost wished him back!

"There is someone in the entry, dear child," whispered Mrs. Errol. "Go
and see--go and see!"

She went, moving as one stricken blind. But before she reached the door
it opene