hear every sound in his wife's chamber.
Through it, too, you have heard me sing and play and laugh, and I have
heard tones of sadness from your room, and exclamations in an unknown
tongue, with no cheering word to comfort you and drive away your
sorrow. Three days ago, about midnight, you began to sing, and that time
I could follow the words,--'_De profundis ad te clamavi, Domine.'_ Don't
look so surprised. You are not dreaming all this, and I am really the
Marchioness Caldariva, better known as 'the beautiful Cyrene.' I have
intruded on you this evening, but to-morrow you will admit me of your
own free will, and the day after you shall be my guest. We will signal
to each other through the tube when we are alone and disengaged, and we
shall soon be great friends."

Blanka started slightly at the bare thought of friendship with this
woman.

"I am in love with you already," continued the Marchioness Caldariva.
"For the past week we have been meeting every day. We kneel side by side
in the same church, for I go to church regularly; but you have not
noticed me, because you never raise your eyes from your prayer-book to
look at your neighbours' bonnets and gowns. As for me, now, I watch you
all the time I am praying. Daily prayers are a necessity with me. In the
morning I pray for the sins I have committed the day before, and in the
evening for those to be committed on the morrow. Another bond of
sympathy between us is the similar lot to which we are both
condemned,--a life unblessed by domestic happiness,--and we cherish
therefore a common hatred of the world. You, however, show yours by
leading a solitary life of mourning, I mine by amusing myself the best
way I can. If I were strong enough to follow your example, I should do
so, but I can't live without distraction. You are strong; I am weak. I
admire in you your power to humble your enemies before you. You were
told, weren't you, that I wrote that anonymous letter?"

Blanka looked at the speaker with wide eyes of inquiry and wonder. She
began at length to place confidence in her words.

"And you were told the truth, too," continued the other. "Oh, those two
men are intriguers of the deepest dye. I was accused of upsetting their
plan. I was told how mercilessly you had repulsed one of them. Really,
that was a master stroke on your part. The fourteenth paragraph! He
himself confessed the secret to me,--how he forged a note, some years
ago, in the name of a good friend