ot
understand the violin, and wants to play it herself. And heavens! the
noise!" How he managed to post these cards was always a mystery; they
were marked with the mark of doubling up twice, so it showed he
concealed them somewhere and perhaps popped them into a pillar-box, when
out for a walk. This one was dated two days ago. Could anything have
happened since? She burned with impatience for Mimo to come in.

A cheap, little clock struck seven. Where could he be? The minutes
seemed to drag into an eternity. All sorts of possibilities struck her,
and then she controlled herself and became calm.

There was a large photograph of her mother, which Mimo had colored
really well. It was in a silver frame upon the mantelpiece, and she
gazed and gazed at that, and whispered aloud in the gloomy room:

"_Maman, adoree!_ Take care of your little one now, even if he must come
to you soon."

And beside this there was another, of Mimo, taken at the same time, when
Zara and her mother had gone to the Emperor's palace in that far land.
How wonderfully handsome he was then, and even still!--and how the air
of _insouciance_ suited him, in that splendid white and gold uniform.
But Mimo looked always a gentleman, even in his shabbiest coat.

And now that she knew what the passion of love meant herself, she better
understood how her mother had loved. She had never judged her mother, it
was not in her nature to judge any one; underneath the case of steel
which her bitter life had wrought her, Zara's heart was as tender as an
angel's.

Then she thought of the words in the Second Commandment: "And the sins
of the fathers shall be visited upon the children." Had they sinned,
then? And if so how terribly cruel such Commandments were--to make the
innocent children suffer. Mirko and she were certainly paying some
price. But the God that _Maman_ had gone to and loved and told her
children of, was not really cruel, and some day perhaps she--Zara--would
come into peace on earth. And Mirko? Mirko would be up there, happy and
safe with _Maman_.

The cheap clock showed nearly half-past seven. She could not wait
another moment, and also she reasoned if Mimo were sending her a
telegram it would be to Park Lane. He knew she was coming up; she would
get it there on her return, so she scribbled a line to Count Sykypri,
and told him she had been--and why--and that she must hear at once, and
then she left and hurried back to her uncle's house. And when