"

"Leave me."

"A quarter of an hour, Kaya, no more? I will send word to Boris. He
will guard the curtain so no one will enter, unless it is the Duke
himself. As soon as the clock strikes, you promise, we will waltz
together?"

"Go, Michel, go--I promise."

The Prince made a step forward as though to gather the shrinking figure
in his arms. He hesitated; then he moved towards the curtain;
hesitated again and looked behind him. Then the heavy folds fell and
the girl was alone.

She stood for a moment, watching the folds, then she put her hands to
her eyes and swayed as though she were falling.

"God!" she cried, "Must I do it? Is there no other--no other
instrument?" She sobbed to herself in little broken words, catching
her breath: "_I vow--I vow--without weakness, or hesitation, or
mercy--with mine own hands if--needs be._"

She staggered forward, still sobbing, and bent over the desk.
Something white fluttered and fell from her lace; she smoothed it with
her fingers; gazed at it.

"God!" she cried, "Oh, God!"

Then she clasped her breast again and drew something out, something
dark and hard. She gave a startled glance about the room, covering it
with her arms; her form shivering as though in a chill.

"_In the name of the Black Cross I swear--I swear--_"

Then she crept back to the couch and sank on the floor behind it,
covering her face with her hands. As she did so, the door on the
corridor opened a crack, then wider, slowly wider, and some one came
in. The form was that of a man. He looked about him. The room was
still, deserted, and he gave a sigh of relief, hurrying over to the
desk. When he turned up the lamp, the light revealed a bundle of
papers which he laid on the desk, examining them one after the other,
putting his face close to the lamp, studying, absorbed.

The face was that of the Grand-Duke Stepan; his beaked nose, his grey,
upturned mustache, his eyes small and crossed. They were fixed on the
sheets. All of a sudden he started violently.

Beside him on the desk, just under the lamp, was a slip of paper.
There was nothing on the paper but a Black Cross graven, above it:
_Cmeptb_.

As the Duke gazed at it, his face grew ashen, his mouth twitched, his
eyes seemed fairly to start from his head; his knees knocked together.
He glanced fearfully around, trying vainly to steady his hands.

"_Without weakness, without hesitation, or mercy, by mine own hands if
needs be, I s