the brain. You know he was far from strong. He
was only home from India on sick leave."

The princess was silent for a moment. Her face looked inexpressibly
mournful. Involuntarily her hand went to her heart, and she looked at
Mrs Jefferson with sad, appealing eyes. "I have suffered a great
deal," she said, slowly. "I only bore it for his sake--for the hope
they gave me that one day we should meet, and love, and taste the
happiness of life together. Tell me, was it anything I said or revealed
that shocked him?"

"Well--I guess so," said the little American, uneasily. "Of course, to
us it was all mysterious; but he seemed to make it out, and at last,
when you rose up and stretched out your arm and cried out, `Die! in your
crimes--_die_!' the Colonel just gave a sort of gasp, and crash went his
chair, and he lay there on the floor like a dead creature. We were all
finely scared, I can tell you. The odd part was that you went to sleep
again like a child, just as simply and quietly as possible, and my
husband and the poet, and poor old Diogenes, they got the Colonel to his
room, and laid him on the bed, and we sent for a doctor, and he's not
conscious yet. That's all I can tell you."

The Princess Zairoff leant back on her chair white and silent. She
asked no more questions.

Presently an attendant appeared with obsequious inquiries. The princess
suddenly shivered. "Ask them," she said, abruptly, "to bring up the
temperature to 300 degrees, I am cold."

"Cold!" Mrs Jefferson stared. "I guess it's as well I came here
first," she said, "for certainly I can't stand it 50 degrees hotter than
it is at present. I'll go into the second room. You see I'm reversing
the usual order this morning. Three, two, one, instead of one, two,
three. I'll sit just here by the door, so that we can still talk if you
wish. I look like a boiled lobster, I'm sure."

Princess Zairoff said nothing. But when the American had withdrawn, she
threw herself down on a couch near the wall. By choosing it she was out
of sight of anyone in the adjoining room, though able to converse if she
wished.

That she did not wish was very evident. No sooner was she alone than an
expression of intense anguish came over her face. Her hands locked
themselves together, an agony far beyond the weakness of tears was in
her beautiful eyes.

"I have lost him," she cried, in a stifled whisper. "Lost him for
ever... and it was for this we were