eping--she would see those
glassy eyes, the drooping jaw, that horrible stain which darkened the
throat and breast. For a few seconds, which to her seemed an eternity,
she remained here, crouching beside the dead body of this unfortunate
man, trying in vain in her confused mind to conjecture what had brought
Bela here, instead of the young Count, within the reach of Leopold's
maniacal jealousy and revenge.

But her brain was too numbed for reasoning and for coherent thought. She
had but to accept the facts as they were: that Eros Bela lay here--dead,
that Leopold had murdered him, and that she must save herself at all
costs from being implicated in this awful, awful crime!

At last she contrived to gather up a sufficiency of strength--both
mental and physical--to turn her back upon this terrible scene. She had
struggled up to her feet and was turning to go when her foot knocked
against something hard, and as--quite mechanically--her eyes searched
the ground to see what this something was, she saw that it was the key
of the back door, which had evidently escaped from the dead man's hand
as he fell.

To stoop for it and pick it up--to run for the back door, which was so
close by--to unlock and open it and then to slip through it into the
house was but the work of a few seconds--and now here she was once again
in her room, like the hunted beast back in its lair--panting, quivering,
ready to fall--but safe, at all events.

No one had seen her, of that she felt sure. And now she knew--or thought
she knew--exactly what had happened. Lakatos Andor had been to the
castle; he had seen my lord and got the key away from him. He wanted to
ingratiate himself with my lord and to be able to boast in the future
that he had saved my lord's life, but evidently he did mean to have his
revenge not only on herself--Klara--but also on Eros Bela for the
humiliation which they had put upon Elsa. It was a cruel and a dastardly
trick of revenge, and in her heart Klara had vague hopes already of
getting even with Andor one day. But that would come by and by--at some
future time--when all this terrible tragedy would have been forgotten.

For the present she must once more think of herself. The key was now a
precious possession. She went to hang it up on its accustomed peg. Even
Leopold--if he stayed in the village to brazen the whole thing
out--could not prove anything with regard to that key. Eros Bela might
have been a casual passer-by, str