ance, and she had begun to think that he did
not even take sufficient interest in her to care what she thought or
felt as long as she performed her allotted tasks and did not worry him
with complaints or questions.

The feeling of a barrier between them troubled her vaguely, and she was
glad when she found him one night waiting for her outside the stage
door.

Half an hour later he was smoking a cigarette in her room while she
brushed her hair.

They had been silent for some time, and both started when the door was
assaulted by a sudden thump, and the scarecrow-like visage of the
depressed landlady appeared in the opening.

Having delivered herself of a small cardboard box, and a few grumbling
comments upon the indecent hours and ways of circus performers, she
withdrew, and Arithelli proceeded to cut the string and remove the lid.

"I can't see what it is in this light," she said; "Emile, may I have
the candle a little nearer? Flowers? No one sends me flowers now.
But these are--"

Her voice broke and stopped. Emile, who had been on the alert from the
moment of the landlady's entrance, sprang up and pulled the girl to one
side. A mysterious parcel at that hour of the night, too late for any
post. One might have guessed what it meant.

"What is it?" he asked sharply. The answer was an incoherent one, and
he could see that she was paralysed with terror.

The opening of the box had revealed a sinister-looking bouquet of
artificial black roses tied with blood-red ribbons.

In Barcelona there are many strange and ingenious ways of conveying
death by explosives. A clock, a painted casket which might contain
bon-bons; a coffee-pot, a _casserole_--any apparently harmless and
common utensil.

A bunch of flowers was one of the most common mediums for a bomb.

The Anarchist colours showed clearly that it must either have been sent
by an enemy who had been formerly one of the band, and who was now
revenging himself by an attempt to see his former associates "hoist
with their own petard," or else it was an affair of the police. In any
case, supposing the thing to be harmless, it was a warning of danger.

Emile's wits worked swiftly, and he was used to emergencies. He looked
round, and found a jug of water, and the floral tribute floated
harmlessly therein. As it did not sink at once he concluded that there
was no concealed bomb. Then he turned his attention to Arithelli, and
gave her a vigorous shaking, whi