e floor.

"Good-bye now--Velasco," she said.

He looked at her, and he was trembling and shaking from head to foot,
like one in a chill. His teeth were clenched and his eyes were
bloodshot; the pulses beat in his temples.

"My God!" he cried, "If it is true--if you don't love me! If--"

Kaya stretched out her hand to him, catching her breath. "Good-bye,
Velasco--"

He turned on her fiercely, and raised his arm as if he would have
struck her: "You are cruel!" he said, crying out, "You are not a
woman!" He caught her by the shoulders and held her, looking down into
her eyes, with his face close to hers.

"Swear it!" he cried, "Swear it if you can--if you dare! Swear you
don't love--me."

She looked at him and her lips trembled.

"Swear it!"

She nodded.

A cry burst from his throat, like that of an animal, wounded, at bay.
His blood-shot eyes stared at her for a moment, and then he flung her
from him with all his strength and turning, dashed from the room.

The door slammed.

The girl reeled backward, putting her hands to her face. Then, as the
echo of his footsteps died away on the stairs, she fell on her knees,
crouching and sobbing.

"He is gone!" she cried out, the words coming in little moans through
her clenched teeth. "He is gone! Velasco is gone!"

Her form shook in a torrent of weeping, and she took her hands from her
face and wrung them together. "I love him!" she said, "I love him! If
he had stayed! No--no, I am mad! I am cursed--cursed by the Black
Cross. There is blood on my hands!"

She held them out before her, and they trembled and shook. "Blood!"
she cried, "I see it--red--dripping! It fell from his wound on my hand
and nothing will wash it away! Nothing!" Her voice died away to a
whisper and she knelt, staring at her hands with eyes wild and dilated:

"Not even his love," she said, "not even his love could wash it away.
It would spread--he too would be cursed. He--too!" Then she flung
herself on the floor and buried her head against the side of the couch,
clinging to it, with her body convulsed:

"Come back, Velasco!" she stammered, "I am weak--come back! Put your
arms around me--kiss me again! Don't be angry. Don't look at me like
that! Velasco--I won't leave you! I--I love you! Come back!"

She lay still, shuddering.

Outside, in the street, came the clatter of wheels passing and the
cries of a street vendor; far off came the whistle of a locomotive.
K