window there was a doorway with a
heavy portiere; not a fold of the portiere stirred. To his right, near
the other window, was a door--the door by which Camilla had entered that
night a month ago; it was shut. His glance searched among the rich
confusion of furniture--fauteuils, occasional tables, sofas, statuary,
vases, cabinets. He peered into every corner of the silent chamber, and
saw nothing that gave a sign of life. He even gazed up guiltily at the
decorated ceiling, as though some Freemason's Eye might be scanning him
from above.

The coffin reigned in the room; all else was subservient to its massive
and sinister presence, and the bright twin-lamps watched over its
majesty with dazzling orbs.

Hugo went near the coffin, stepping on tip-toe over the thick-piled
rugs, and examined it. There was no name-plate. He looked at himself in
the mirror, and again he murmured a question: 'Why am I here?' Then he
listened attentively, fearfully. No sound. His hands travelled to the
screwdriver on the mantelpiece, and then fifty of his hands picked up
fifty screwdrivers. And he listened once more. No sound.

'I must do it. I must,' he thought.

The next moment he was unscrewing the screws in the lid of the coffin,
and scarcely had he begun the task when he realized that what he had
heard from the balcony was the screwing of these same screws. There were
twelve, and some of them were difficult to start, but in due course he
had removed them all, and they stood in a row on their heads on the
mantelpiece. He listened yet again. No sound. He had only to push the
lid of the coffin to the left or to the right, or to lift it up. He
spent several seconds in deciding whether he should push or lift, and
then at length fifty Hugos lifted bodily the lids of fifty coffins. And
after a dreadful hesitation he lowered his gaze and looked.

Yes, it was Camilla! He had known always that it would be Camilla.

The pale repose of death only emphasized the proud and splendid beauty
of that head, with its shut eyes, its mouth firmly closed in a faint
smile, and its glorious hair surrounded by all the white frippery of the
shroud. Here lay the mortal part of the incomparable creature who had
been coveted by three men and won by one--for a few brief days'
possession. Here lay the repository of Ravengar's secrets, the grave of
Hugo's happiness, the dead mate of Tudor's desire. Here lay the eternal
woman, symbol of all beauty and all charm, victi