the door for her. And then
he was alone with Eugen. It was his turn that night to watch, for they
still half-expected some strange, sudden visit, or onslaught, or move
of one kind or another from Jules. Racksole slept in the parlour on the
ground floor.

Nella had the front bedroom on the first floor; Miss Spencer was
immured in the attic; the last-named lady had been singularly quiet and
incurious, taking her food from Nella and asking no questions, the old
woman went at nights to her own abode in the purlieus of the harbour.
Hour after hour Aribert sat silent by his nephew's bed-side, attending
mechanically to his wants, and every now and then gazing hard into
the vacant, anguished face, as if trying to extort from that mask the
secrets which it held. Aribert was tortured by the idea that if he could
have only half an hour's, only a quarter of an hour's, rational speech
with Prince Eugen, all might be cleared up and put right, and by the
fact that that rational talk was absolutely impossible on Eugen's part
until the fever had run its course. As the minutes crept on to midnight
the watcher, made nervous by the intense, electrical atmosphere which
seems always to surround a person who is dangerously ill, grew more
and more a prey to vague and terrible apprehensions. His mind dwelt
hysterically on the most fatal possibilities.

He wondered what would occur if by any ill-chance Eugen should die in
that bed--how he would explain the affair to Posen and to the Emperor,
how he would justify himself. He saw himself being tried for murder,
sentenced (him--a Prince of the blood!), led to the scaffold... a scene
unparalleled in Europe for over a century! ... Then he gazed anew at
the sick man, and thought he saw death in every drawn feature of that
agonized face. He could have screamed aloud. His ears heard a peculiar
resonant boom. He started--it was nothing but the city clock striking
twelve. But there was another sound--a mysterious shuffle at the door.
He listened; then jumped from his chair. Nothing now! Nothing! But
still he felt drawn to the door, and after what seemed an interminable
interval he went and opened it, his heart beating furiously. Nella lay
in a heap on the door mat. She was fully dressed, but had apparently
lost consciousness. He clutched at her slender body, picked her up,
carried her to the chair by the fire-place, and laid her in it. He had
forgotten all about Eugen.

'What is it, my angel?' he whisp