eceive the man
who shelters you and to whom you owe everything. I betray him who does
me harm--you, him who did you good. We are on a level, unless you have
surpassed me. This is love! Did you imagine that you can withdraw the
foot that takes one step in this path? An error, for one must tread it
to the end. The steps are passion, the fault, the vice and the crime.
But I have need of you to save me. I am yours and your soul is mine!
Take the spoil and follow me!"

In his surprise, Antonino did not remark a footstep, sounding harsh with
gravel grinding the wood of the verandah, or a grim face at the open
window.

"You are right," he said. "I am a scoundrel, but I am not going to be a
villain. It is I who should commit suicide. Farewell! my death be on
your head!"

"You have spoken your doom!" said she quickly, as she made a sign to Von
Sendlingen in whose hand she saw naked steel abruptly gleam.

"Who's there?" began the Italian, but, before he could turn, the long
stiletto, drawn out of a sword-cane, was passed through his slender
body.

He fell without a groan and his staring eyes, sublimely unconscious of
his assassin and of the instigator of the crime, were riveted, on the
ceiling.

"Confound it!" said the colonel, "this is not your husband!"

"No, another conscientious fool!" she said brutally. "Waste no time on
that boy. Before the man returns, let us seize our prise. Keep your
hands off. This is no common chest. It opens with a combination lock and
the word is 'R-e-b-e-c-c-a!'"

She quickly fingered the studs which opened the lock when properly
played upon, and to the joy of Colonel Von Sendlingen, she could lift up
the loosened lid. But for a temporary vexation, they saw in the dim
light that a kind of steel grating still closed the discovered space.

"That will not detain me long," said the colonel, contemptuously, and
relying upon his great strength as he forced his fingers between these
bars, he secured a firm hold and began to draw the frame up toward him.
"You have done your part, madame, well, and I--"

At the same instant, the chest became a mass of the whitest flame which
expanded monstrously and the whole house shook in a dreadful explosion.

It was supernaturally that Clemenceau had been warned to stand aside and
let the justice of heaven deal its stroke. No longer fear that Cesarine
will work evil alone or directed by Von Sendlingen. At the last moment,
all was put in order again by the e