oft caress on his
brow.

CHAPTER V.

One afternoon Morgan took a hansom and drove to Hampstead. He entered
the glass-covered way that led up to Cleo's door and knocked
unhesitatingly. The servant who responded to his summons stared at him
in undisguised astonishment.

"Is your mistress at home?" he asked, for he did not know by what name
to enquire for Cleo. He sent in his own, however, and was immediately
ushered into her presence. This gave him no elation, because he had
taken it for granted she would receive him.

"I had a sort of presentiment you would come to-day," said Cleo,
throwing on one side the novel she had been reading, and the cover of
which, illumined with seven mystic stars and a veiled floating figure,
just caught his eye.

"And I just felt that I _must_ come," he said as, at her invitation,
he took a seat on one of the quaint stools with somewhat of an air of
long habituation to this strange Egyptian chamber.

Cleo was lounging on her gilded settee, obviously arrayed to receive
him in the hope of his calling. A vague, mystic light that compelled
an almost religious emotion came through the tiny window panes. The
fountain played with a soft splash.

"Do you know I am what the vulgar call 'superstitious?'" she
continued. "I always knew you would come into my life."

As she spoke her eyes seemed to shine with a greater fire. The scarlet
of her lips to-day was somewhat concealed by the half shadows; her
hair, too, seemed silkier and more restrained in tone than his first
impression of it. Her gown was of a vague colour--a sort of blue-grey,
in which the element of blue was suggested as a light continuous
tinge. A crimson silk scarf, fastened with an opal buckle, formed a
pleasing sash, and fell to the knee. As before, her feet were
sandalled.

"That letter of yours Robert showed me--years ago now--made me love
you at once," she explained. "Only a man of genius could have written
it. How my heart bled for you when you said, 'I see no other end to
the comedy than fall. God knows what shape that fall will take, into
what mud my soul plunge in the fight for life. I could bear anything
if I were not so utterly alone and helpless.... If you could see me,
speak to me--help me in any way!' Yes, I wanted to see you--speak to
you--help you. It was I who made Robert respond to your appeal. I
remember how disgusted I was with him when he insisted on taking the
whole thing as a splendid joke, just