her arm
and let her speak. I want to hear what she has to say."

"She is trying to come between you and me, Elsa," said Andor, who was
trying to keep his violent rage in check. "She tried to come between you
and Bela, and chose an ugly method to get at what she wanted. She hates
you . . . why I don't know, but she does hate you, and she always tries
to do you harm. Don't listen to her, I tell you. Why! just look at her
now! . . . the girl is half mad."

"Mad?" broke in Klara, as with a jerky movement of her shoulders she
disengaged herself from Andor's rough grasp. "I dare say I am mad. And
so would you be," she added, turning suddenly to Elsa, "so would you be,
if all in one night you were to lose everything you cared for in the
world--your freedom--the consideration of your friends--the man who some
day would have made you a good husband--everything, everything--and all
because of that sneaking, double-faced coward."

"If you don't hold your tongue . . ." cried Andor menacingly.

"You will kill me, won't you?" she sneered. "One murder more or less on
your conscience won't hurt you any more, will it, my friend? You will
kill me, eh? Then you'll have two of us to your reckoning by and by, me
and Bela!"

"Bela!" the cry, which sounded like a protest--hot, indignant,
defensive--came from Elsa. She was paler than either of the others, and
her glowing, inquiring eyes were fixed upon Klara with the look of an
untamed creature ready to defend and to protect the thing that it holds
dear.

"Don't listen to her, Elsa," pleaded Andor in a voice rendered hoarse
with an overwhelming apprehension.

He felt as if his happiness, his life, the whole of this living,
breathing world were slipping away from him--as if he had suddenly woke
up from a beautiful, peaceful dream and found himself on the edge of a
precipice and unable, in this sudden rude awakening, to keep a foothold
upon the shifting sands. There was a mist before his eyes--a mist which
seemed to envelop Elsa more and more, making her slim, exquisite figure
appear more dim, blurring the outline of her gold-crowned head, getting
more and more dense until even her blue eyes had disappeared away from
him--away--snatched from his grasp--wafted away by that mist to the
distant land beyond the low-lying horizon.

Something in the agony of his appeal, something in the pathos of Elsa's
defiant attitude must have struck a more gentle cord in the Jewess'
heart. The tears gat