Tristram and Cyril are the very last. If anything happened to
them it would be the end. Oh! we are all so glad Tristram is going to be
married!"

Zara's eyes now suddenly blazed at the unconscious insinuation in this
speech. Any one who has ever watched a caged creature of the cat tribe
and seen how the whole gamut of emotions--sullen endurance, suspicion,
resentment, hate and rage, as well as contentment and happiness--can
appear in its orbs without the slightest aid from lids or eyebrows,
without the smallest alteration in mouth or chin, will understand how
Zara's pools of ink spoke while their owner remained icily still.

She understood perfectly the meaning of Ethelrida's speech. The line of
the Tancreds should go on through her! But never, never! That should
never be! If they were counting upon that they were counting in vain.
The marriage was never intended to be anything but an empty ceremony,
for mercenary reasons. There must be no mistake about this. What if Lord
Tancred had such ideas, too? And she quivered suddenly and caught in her
breath with the horror of this thought.

And who was Cyril? Zara had no knowledge of Cyril, any more than of
Wrayth! But she did not ask.

If Francis Markrute had heard this conversation he would have been very
much annoyed with himself, and would have blamed himself for stupidity.
He, of course, should have seen that his niece was sufficiently well
coached, in all the details that she should know, not to be led into
these pitfalls.

Ethelrida felt a sensation of a sort of petrified astonishment. There is
a French word, _ahuri_, which expresses her emotion exactly, but there
is no English equivalent. Tristram's fiance was evidently quite ignorant
of the simplest facts about him, or his family, or his home! Her eyes
had blazed at Ethelrida's last speech, with a look of self-defence and
defiance. And yet Tristram was evidently passionately in love with her.
How could such things be? It was a great mystery. Ethelrida was thrilled
and interested.

Francis Markrute guessed the ladies' lonely moments would be most
difficult to pass, so he had curtailed the enjoyment of the port and old
brandy and cigars to the shortest possible dimensions, Tristram aiding
him. His one desire was to be near his fiance.

The overmastering magnetic current which seemed to have drawn him from
the very first moment he had seen her now had augmented into almost
pain. She had been cruelly cold and disd