w. He was glad to be thus isolated--he could overhear no
criticism or comments. Naturally his looks stole towards Helen. She
had not moved. He could see that a strange, sad expression had come
over her face. Then she seemed to smile as Mrs. Blackstone made some
remark to her and a reply fell languidly from her lips, after which a
desultory conversation sprang up between the two.

In that moment it seemed to Morgan that Helen had some wondrous power
against fate and he seemed to be wishing with the intensity of prayer
that she might raise her hand and release him from his nightmare.

But he knew that was only a yearning fancy!

And as the thought came to him that the curtain was to rise again in a
moment, it brought back to his memory the precious confidence Cleo had
whispered to him at lunch time.

"I've a surprise in store for you, dear"--the words surged up again in
his ears--"I've arranged a special scene at the beginning of the
second act, in which I alone appear. No one has any suspicion of it,
but I tell you, dear, that the effect will be wonderful. Coming after
I shall have charmed everybody with my acting in the first act, it
will carry the audience off its feet with enthusiasm."

As nobody had the air of having been charmed by the first act, he
wondered how the predicted effect would be altered in consequence.

CHAPTER V.

Morgan, of course, could not guess the nature of the new scene that
Cleo was now going to introduce. The stage during the second act was
to represent "a private apartment in the palace," and here the action
assumed some dramatic semblance, taking the following course: The
Christian lover manages to effect an entry into this same private
apartment and to hold a long, loving discourse with the Basha's
favourite, and when eventually the two are about to embrace, in comes
no less a personage than the Basha himself, and advances quietly on
tip-toe and listens for awhile. Suddenly he stamps his foot on the
ground and the room is filled, as by magic, with eunuchs and soldiers.
The audience once more get kaleidoscopic impressions, and Cleo and the
Christian are seized and bound, both spitting defiance and declaring
their mutual eternal love, on hearing which the Basha turns pale under
his Oriental skin. The curtain falls as he bids his myrmidons put her
into a sack and heave her into the Nile, and his favourite is carried
off, loudly bidding her lover take heart, for she loves him and