te satin dress and sombre purple cloak, her
dark hair wreathed with a fillet of emerald laurel leaves that gave her
face the look of some tragic muse of long ago. "I know Jim White," she
hurried on, "and he knows me well enough to be sure I'm here for nothing
wrong! I'm not afraid of him. It's you I'm afraid of, Eagle!"

She stopped, and faced him. Unknowingly she faced me, too. Eagle's back
was turned toward me, but I could see Diana's blue eyes gazing up at
him. They were sad and beautiful beyond words. With a shiver of fear, I
realized that no woman on earth could be lovelier than my sister. All
womanhood, with its appeal to man, was in her great imploring eyes.

I was glad that Eagle did not answer. I hoped his silence might mean
that her beauty had lost its magic for him, that he understood fully how
she had come to beguile him, and that he meant to give her no opening.

"This is the first time I have seen you since--since that night at
Alvarado when you bade me 'good-bye,'" she went on, letting her voice
break into a half-stifled sob.

"You saw me at the Embassy," he answered, so coldly that, in her place,
I should have been chilled with discouragement.

"I dared not look at you there," she confessed. "I was afraid
of--myself. Oh, Eagle! I'm even more afraid of you now--more afraid than
of myself!"

"Really, I am not so very formidable, Lady Diana," said Eagle, with cool
scorn that showed in tone and manner. "But if I may ask--since you stand
in such dread of me, why do you come to beard the lion in his den?"

"Because the lion is brave and kingly I have ventured. I _had_ to come,
Eagle. There was no other way. I found out your address from your
Russian friend, Major Skobeleff. He happened to mention it, asking me if
I knew Jim White who'd lent the place to you. I didn't guess then how
thankful I'd soon be to know where you lived. Oh, Eagle! Don't look at
me so cruelly! I can't bear it. You hate me, but you mustn't judge. If
you knew everything, you'd see that you'd done me a wrong."

"I should be sorry to think that," said Eagle, as formally as if he
spoke to a stranger. "And you are mistaken if you really suppose I hate
you. I have gone through a good deal lately, Lady Diana, and learned to
see personal things in the right proportion. Let me assure you, my
feelings toward you are not in the least malevolent."

"You mean you don't care for me any more? I ought to be glad, for your
sake and mine, too. But