eye
showed that he had touched upon a jealous spot.

"And by the by," he pursued, "what does this stranger, whom I can not
remember having known, look like? A villain?"

She answered now in a voice filled with rancor.

"Win away the girl from him and thou wilt know thyself to be the
better man; but study how much he hath outstripped thee and thou shalt
decide for thyself, then, that he is handsomer, more winsome, stronger
and more profitable. Describe him for thyself."

"Out upon you! How irritable misfortune makes most of us! Now, here is
my lady. She would fail to see the humor in my fetching back this
pretty impostor. Alas! Were I Deucalion or Pyrrha or whoever else it
was that repeopled the world, I should have left jealousy out of the
make-up of wives. It is a needless element. It gives them no pleasure,
and Jove! how inconvenient it is for husbands! Now, I am not jealous
of my wife. In fact, had any man the hardihood to supplant me, I
should not discourage him; I should not, by my soul!"

"Why," she burst out again, irritated beyond control at his manner,
"do you not leave this place?"

He swung his foot idly and smiled.

"I shall when I can take with me this dear pretty impostor who is so
determined to have me," he answered lightly.

"Will you?" she asked eagerly. "Is that why you remain?"

"And for my lady's dowry. She keeps the key. But had I the girl
cloaked and hooded for flight, I might go, even without the treasure.
The times are precarious, you observe."

She rose almost precipitately and hurried over to the swaying curtain
of some heavy white material like samite, covering that which appeared
to be a blind arch in the wall. She drew the hanging aside. It had
hidden the black mouth of a tunnel, closed by a brass wicket which was
locked.

"Here," she said rapidly, "is what strengthens John in his folly. This
is a passage that leads under the Temple through Moriah into Tophet.
The whole city is underlaid with these galleries, but this is the only
one which leads to safety."

She dropped the curtain and approached him.

"But thou canst not go out of that passage alone!"

He smiled, and then with that boyish impulsiveness that he had
cultivated to cover the evil in his nature, he thrust out his hand to
her.

"Here is my hand on it!" he exclaimed.

"Go, then, and cease not till you have found her. Then, by any or all
the gods, I shall see that you do not go out of that passage
empty-handed