ute
myself to the hazard, and no man understands what that means to a
woman."

"How long is it since the woman has understood?" he asked, mockingly,
but Esmay was silent.

"Well, then, if I cannot have you with me I want you actively against
me--the more balls in the air, the better sport for the juggler. And at
least we understand each other."

"There is just the one question--perhaps an obvious one."

"Yes."

"Boris or Ulick? For of course you know which of them is to be the old
Dom's heir."

"I do."

"I am to be informed of my purchaser's name--after the bargaining is
over? And only then?"

"Since you choose to put it in that way--yes."

Neither chose to break the silence that fell between them, and Esmay,
catching up her skirt, turned to go.

"Good-night," she said, but Quinton Edge did not answer. Apparently he
had forgotten her very existence; he sat with feet out-stretched to the
fire, his eyes fixed upon the curl of blue smoke that hung above his
pipe bowl.

Esmay went up to the room on the second floor which she shared with her
sister. Nanna was already in bed and asleep, but she started up as Esmay
entered, like a dog that has been listening in its dreams for its
master's footsteps. "Are you coming to bed?" she asked, drowsily, and
fell back among the pillows without even waiting for the answer.

Esmay, unconscious of the cold, remained seated at the window looking
out upon the river, her mind busy with the ultimatum which had just been
presented to it. That it was an ultimatum, she could not doubt; Quinton
Edge had been in deadly earnest in confronting her with her fate--a
double-faced one, as she thought, with a little shiver. She could not
avoid seeing it, no matter which way she turned.

A waning moon in a clouding sky. Even as she looked the two faces seemed
to start out from the uncertain shadows--Boris, the Butcher--involuntarily,
she shrank back from the window--never that!

Ulick? Yes, she had been fond of Ulick; they had been comrades and
friends for so long as she could remember. But Ulick in this new
light--ah, that was different again. Strangely enough she found herself
contemplating this last possibility even more fearfully than she had the
first. If the "Butcher" but laid a finger upon her, surely her arm was
strong enough to drive the dagger home. But if it were Ulick, what could
she do but turn the weapon against her own breast.

Plan and counterplan, and the argument inva