ssing of the horses and mules, and these
disfigurements were the result of her struggles with saddle-girths and
straps. Her work was usually well done, and if it did not happen to be
satisfactory, she came in for the united grumbles of the whole party.

Emile bit into his cigarette as his eyes caught the discoloured lines
of Sobrenski's sign-manual on her wrist.

It was entirely through him, Emile, that she had in the first place
joined the league of conspirators, and this was one of the results.
Sobrenski's judgment had been more far-seeing than his own. One girl
in a roomful of fanatics, (he was one himself, but that did not make
any difference,) would naturally stand a very poor chance if she was
foolish enough to oppose them.

With masculine thoughtlessness Emile had set the candle close beside
the bed, where it flared full into Arithelli's eyes.

They were wide open now. The look of desperation had faded, and there
was in them only the appeal of one human being to another for help and
sympathy.

"_Eh, bien_, Fatalite?"

She shifted her position wearily and stretched out her hands towards
him, murmuring, "_Je veux dormir_."

If Emile had possessed either chloroform or any other narcotic he would
at once have given it to her without much thought of the possible
consequences. An inspiration seized him to use the power for soothing
and alleviating provided by Nature. He knew that Arithelli would be an
easy subject for the exercise of animal magnetism, and her morbid
condition would make it even easier for him to send her to sleep.

He moved away the candle, so as to leave her face in shadow, and
leaning forward he laid his hand across her forehead and eyes, and
began a series of regular and monotonous passes, always in a downward
direction. Once he rested his thumbs lightly on her eyeballs,
remaining so for a few seconds, while his will went out to her, bidding
her sleep and find unconsciousness.

CHAPTER XIII

"There is a woman at the beginning of all great things."
LAMARTINE.

The whizzing rush and discordant scream of the electric trams, the sun
warm upon his face, aroused Emile from a restless, fitful sleep of a
few hours. The street cries had begun to swell into a volume of sound,
and at the earliest dawn the whole place teemed with stir and life.
There was no hour in all the night in which Barcelona really slept.
Some of the shops did not close before midnight, and peopl