s because I know."

"Do you believe, then," I asked, "that Bartot was poisoned?"

She looked at me as though in surprise. Her eyes were like the eyes of
a child.

"I know it!" she answered simply. "There is not any question about it
at all."

I listened to the music for several moments in silence. Once or twice
I stole a glance at her. Notwithstanding a certain perfection of
outline, and a toilette which removed her wholly from any suggestion
of immaturity, there was yet something childish in the pale, drawn
face,--in the eyes with their look of fear. My heart was full of
sympathy for her. Such adventures as this one into which I seemed to
have stumbled were well enough for men. She, at any rate, was wholly
out of place in her present position! I had wild dreams at that
moment. The wine and the music, and the absolute trustfulness with
which she seemed, for the moment, to have committed herself to my
keeping, fired my blood. I had thoughts of taking her hand in mine, of
bidding her leave the hotel that night, that minute, with me,--of
taking her away into the country, into some quiet place where we could
be married, and where none of these things which terrified her could
throw their shadows across her life! Yet barely had the thought come
to me before I realized how impossible it all was. I, too, was an
adventurer! If I were not actually in the power of these men, it was
to them that I owed my liberty! My own spirits began to fall. It was a
queer maze this into which I had been drawn.

The music changed its note. Even as we sat there its languorous,
passionate rhythm passed away, to be succeeded by the quicker, cleaner
notes of some old martial music. It came to me like a cold douche. I
remembered that I had been--was still--a soldier. I remembered that my
word was pledged to certain undertakings, and that after all I was
fighting on her side. The momentary depression passed away. I found
myself able to talk more lightly, until something of the old gayety
came back to her also.

"Tell me," she said, as at last we rose to vacate our places,--"you
spoke the other day of going down into the country."

"I am not leaving London just yet," I said decidedly.

If I had indeed made some great sacrifice, I should have been rewarded
by the brilliant look which she flashed up at me. Her eyes for a
moment were absolutely the color of violets. I heard people whisper as
we passed by. We said very little more to one another.