r blood-stained lips
smiling that foolish, awful smile. It was at this moment that I heard a
knocking at the door.

"At first I kept quite still, dazed, not knowing what I should do. But
then I thought it might be Maxime, who had changed his mind about selling
the jewels, and come back soon to tell me. I was in the mood to see him
at whatever cost. I called through the door to know who was there.
Loria's voice answered. I let him in, explained confusedly what had
happened, and begged him to bring the girl back to consciousness. Five
minutes later he told me that she was dead. In falling, and striking
against the fender, she had broken her neck.

"'What is to become of me?' I asked. 'I did not mean to kill her, and
yet--I am a murderess. Will they send me to the guillotine for this?'

"'No, because I will save you,' Loria answered. Then, quickly, he made me
understand the scheme that had come into his mind. So cunning, so
wonderfully thought out it was, that I asked myself if he had somehow
planned all that had happened; if he had sent the girl to me, and told
her to say what she had said, counting on my hot blood for some such
sequel as really followed. But I could not see any motive for such
plotting, and in a moment I forgot my strange suspicions, in gratitude
for his offer to save me. Sometimes I had fancied that, in spite of his
wish to marry Madeleine Dalahaide, he loved me; now he swore to me the
truth of this, and I was scarcely surprised. He would give everything he
had in the world to save me, he said. What a fool I was to believe him!
All I had to do in return was to promise that I would obey implicitly.
Gladly I promised, and I did not falter even when the full horror of his
plan was revealed. It was that or a disgraceful, terrible death for me.
Oh, I would have done anything then to escape the guillotine!

"First of all he made me write a letter to Maxime, telling him that I
hated him and never wished to see him again; that I loved another man
better. I did this gladly. That was nothing. And Loria let me go out and
send the letter, while he began the awful work which had to come next. I
thanked him for that. I had not nerve enough left to help much after what
I had gone through.

"When I came back to the flat after sending off the letter, Loria
unlocked the door for me. Already the worst was over.

"His idea was for me to escape and let it seem that _I_ had been
murdered. This could be done, because Ol