e--she thought fleetingly, almost indifferently
of her friends, Azima, who to-day had crowned her for happiness, and
fond, foolish old Miriam and Madame de Coulevain and Tewfick Pasha,
weakly cruel, but amiable; she thought of them all, as unreal
figures from whom she had long taken leave.

The old life was over. It had died for her when she passed through
the dark doorway and met that arrogant, sardonic, fatuous man, the
master of this palace....

Or more truly that old life had died for her when she had flung a
black mantle about her chiffon frock and a street veil across her
sparkling face and had stolen, daring and breathless, into the
lights and revelry of that hotel masquerade. There, when she had
shrunk back from the Harlequin and had looked up to meet the
kindling glance of that mask in tartans--yes, there, the old life
had died for her forever if only she had known it.

And now--she would only like to die, too, she thought miserably,
after she had been assured of Ryder's safety. She was tense with
fear for him, distrusting in every fiber the assurance of that
fanatic, outraged Turk.

She was not utterly resourceless. When Ryder's revolver had dropped
to the floor she had maneuvered, unseen by Hamdi Bey, to get her
train over it, and when she had stooped for her train her one free
hand had closed over the revolver handle beneath the satin and lace.

Now the revolver lay on the divan, and very eagerly she drew it out,
feeling it in the darkness, curling her finger about the trigger.
Never in her life had she fired a shot, for her most formidable
weapon had been the bows and arrows of the Children's Archery
Contest of the English Club, but she felt in herself now that
highstrung tensity which at all cost would carry her on.

Carefully she bestowed the small, steel thing in the bosom of her
dress, then she stared questioningly at the dress itself, hastily
unpinning the veil, and tying the long train up to her girdle. Then,
with a wary glance for the closed door behind which waited that
Fatima she dreaded, she stole to the door the general had shut and
pressed it softly ajar, peering out into the deserted throne room.

Like a great cave of darkness the room stretched before her, peopled
with goblin shadows from the dying candles upon the disordered,
abandoned table; she saw the chair pushed back where she had risen
to struggle with the bey, the long folds of white cloth, sweeping
the floor, behind which Ham