now, according to the account of a flushed messenger, he was
enduring the punishment prophesied, and was purple already. The weary
Doctor took up his hat resignedly and went out. Alexia Boucheafen,
standing idly leaning against the window-frame, negligently listening
to what her companion was saying, saw her employer hurrying down the
steps and along the hot pavement, upon which the sun had been shining
fiercely all day.

"He has gone out," she said, looking round, with a curious inflection
in her voice, as though that fact had a bearing upon the conversation
that had gone before.

"Already?" cried the young man eagerly. "Better than I hoped. And does
he leave his study, laboratory--what does he call it?--unlocked?"

"Yes."

"You are sure?"

"Am I likely to be mistaken?"

"Of course not--no!" He moved across to the door. "Well, come, show me!
Come!"

"You are in a hurry," said the governess, not stirring.

"What would you have me do?" he demanded impatiently. "Can we let time
and opportunity slip together, with what we have to do?"

"Have we not done enough for the present?" she asked slowly. Calm and
cold as she was, a slight irrepressible shudder shook her frame, and he
eyed her incredulously.

"Your note used to be different," he said, with a meaning glance.
"Enough? What do you mean?"

"I saw it." She looked at him steadily, with unflinching eyes. "I saw
him!"

"You did?"

"I did."

"You! What possessed you?"

"I hardly know. I could not help it. I had a fancy that I must."

"You with fancies, you with whims and caprices!" He laughed a laugh of
fierce mockery, strode across the room, took her slender wrist in his
hand and felt the pulse. "Ah, you are ill, your nerves are out of
order, or"--in a different tone--"you suffer from a lapse of memory,
perhaps!"

"What do you mean?"--wrestling herself free, and drawing her level
brows together in a sudden threatening frown.

He went on as though he had not heard her:

"I hoped that your one relapse would be your last, and pleaded for you,
thinking so. It was no easy matter to win you--even you--absolution."

"Bah!" she retorted scoffingly. "Think you I do not know why it was
granted? I am valuable, am I not?"

"You were."

"Were!" she cried. "Am I less now because, looking at that dead boy, I
for once remembered that I was a woman? You doubt me! Who are you to
dare do it? What have you done for the Cause that will weigh in the
scales agains