'The Indian woman,' he whispered, she makes a noise. She must go.'

Jani, crouching in a hidden corner within, had set up a moaning. The sound of her wail caught Harry English's ear: a creeping chill passed over him; that Eastern lament that had nothing human in its note, but was as the despair of the animal that mourns without understanding, how familiar it was to his ear! So did the women there, over seas, wail only over death. He, who had held himself in such strength hitherto, was shaken to his soul. He could not form the words that rose to his lips.

'You know how to deal with these persons,' pursued the Frenchman, absorbed in his thoughts, and in the dusk unable to read the other's countenance, 'I beg you to remove her at once. But, chut, chut, attention, please, not to disturb my patient!'

English drew his breath sharply. Had he been of those who weep, he might have burst into tears then. It is the instant of relief that catches the strong-fighting soul unawares. He clenched his hands till the nails ran into the palm, and followed the doctor on noiseless feet into the room.

One glance at the bed! It was all in shadow; but even in the deliberate dimness there was evidence that a practised hand had already been at work. He could see that his wife had been settled among her pillows with care. The white of a bandage lay across her brow. A screen was set between the bed and the bankedup fire. Old Mary was seated in a high chair, within the glow, composed and watchful, the very picture of what a nurse should be. The light of the shaded candle illumined but one thing-the white hand that hung slightly over the edge of the bed; it scintillated back from the gems of the ring that guarded the narrow wedding circlet. His rings!

M. Châtelard pulled him by the sleeve. Harry English turned sharply. He had told Sir Arthur that his place was not here,' and must now realise in his turn that neither was his place here. There was bitterness and anger in his eyes as he bent over the ayah.

She looked up at him, terror on her face. He pointed to the passage, and she crawled out, on hands and knees, whimpering to herself like a dog. Without another glance towards Rosamond, Harry retired also, and closed the door behind him. Old Mary followed him with her eyes, and folded her hands; her lips moved as if in prayer.

In the passage Jani dragged herself towards her old master, and clutching his ankles, laid her head upon his feet.

'Sahib !'....

Harry looked down at her a moment, without speaking. So intense was the bitterness that welled up within him, even towards this poor wretch, that he was ashamed of it. Thus, when he spoke, it was with an added gentleness.

'Ah, Jani,' he said, ' you knew me, here, from the beginning.'.. This miserable pawn on the chess-board of life, had she not worked against him, how different all might now have been!

Jani once more lifted her face. In the livid dawn it looked grey with fear. Then she was gone from him with a scarcely perceptible rustle, a whisper of soft garments, like some stealthywinged thing of the night. Harry English sank back into his squatting attitude; to wait again. Never had fate so completely veiled her countenance from him.

Years he had endured. He had clung tenaciously to life, had borne, at the moment of hope renewed, the cruellest and most insulting buffet that could strike a man, and still had fought, still had held to a determined purpose. Had it all been to this hour only?-false servant, failing friend, lost wife! No, not lost. So long as the faintest breath flickered between those silent smiling lips.

Harry English turned to God, with a great cry of his soul. It was no cry of supplication, but a call upon the Infinity. Because of Power, because of Justice, because of Goodness, she must not die.

CHAPTER IV.

M. CHÂTELARD sat down by the bed and laid his finger on the slender wrist. A hardening pulse. Fever. He had anticipated fever, he almost welcomed it as the natural course.

Would she live? These nervous creatures are as tough as cats. But, poor soul, were it not perhaps best for her were she to pass? What a situation! Great gods, what a situation! There was not one of these searchers after psychological enigmas, not one of these implacable exponents of the weaknesses of the human heart, not a Maupassant, not a Mirbeau, not a d'Annunzio

who could have devised the story of this impasse. To die would be too absolutely commonplace a solution. If he, Châtelard, could help it, she should not die, were it only for the proper working-out of the problem.

Propping his chin on his hand and his elbow on the bed, the savant leaned forward, gazing at his patient, till his keen eyes, piercing the gloom, were able to trace the lines of the unconscious face.

'It is not that she is so beautiful-there are many in this country who possess the same incredible purity of outline, the same delicate wealth of feminine charm-but c'est une ensorceleuse! Did I not say it to the young man? One of those women who create passions that become historic. One of those whose fate is to make havoc as they go. The three men here-they are mad of her, each in his different way. The poor Gerardine, he could have cried like a child, as we turned him from the room. . . and the sly, quiet, relentless Bethune, that man of granite .. the lover, he's devoured; the very stone wastes in the furnace. How thin he has grown since that Indian night! And the third-the most surprising of all-the real husband! Oh, the strange story! the husband-the first husband par-dessus le marché, as though matters were not sufficiently entangled already! Ah, ça ! mais d'où sort-il, celui-là? C'est qu'il faisait pitié c'est encore lui le plus atteint des trois ! One could feel the frenzied soul under that air of calm command.' . . .

Then enthusiastically following the trail of his own Gallic deductions, M. Châtelard began to re-construct, con amore, the threads of the drama.

Un beau gaillard, malgré sa pâleur de revenant. . . . Avec lui, sans doute, elle a appris ce que c'est que l'amour. Ils se sont aimés jeunes et beaux. . . . Ils se valaient bien l'un l'autre, certes! Idylle parfaite, heures parfumées! Then comes the cyclone. He is swept from her by relentless duty. He dies, a hero in war as he was a hero in love. She is alone, desolate. She mourns. At the psychological moment, enters upon the scene the handsome, rich, powerful Sir Gerardine. He offers her ease, position, comfort, a home, his protection. She turns to him as a child to a father. She places her hand in his. And thereafter follows the inevitable. The years have gone by; she becomes more and more a woman; the demands of her nature expand; and the old husband who is -and I don't blame him-not content to be father. . . . Sapristi,

Then arrives the man, the (He has loved her already

how he bores her, the old husband! young man, the man of her own age. as his friend's wife, in the secret of his own soul, all in honour and loyalty.) He seeks her now, knowing that his hour has come.'

'L'oublierai-je, jamais telle qu'elle était ce soir-là, au moment de la première tentation? Ruisselante du feu vert de ses émeraudes; superbe dans sa beauté, sa chasteté insolente; mais couvant déjà sous la neige de sa blanche beauté, le feu destructeur de la passion renaissante. Elle a lutté. Oh, oui, celle-là a lutté! Son âme et son corps se sont entredéchirés. . . . Mais, poursuivie jusque dans cette solitude même par l'implacable qui l'a traquée comme le tigre sa proie, la fin est inévitable!'

'Et au moment suprême où, femme au zénith de sa gloire, elle cède à la seconde passion-voilà l'objet de la première qui résuscite, et vient la réclamer! Ah, dieux, quel cri! Les oreilles m'en tintent encore. Jamais je ne l'oublierai, ce cri d'un cœur qui s'effondre....

'And the resuscitated man? The devil! where does he come from? Springing up in the old house in the middle of the night. Another tragedy there! He misdoubts, as yet, nothing. Strong in his right, in the memory of their love, he comes to claim her of the old husband-Of the third, of the lover, he has no suspicion. My God, with what eyes of trouble and wonder did he not look at me when I bade him leave her! Unhappy fellow, why, 'tis his very existence that's killing her! How long will it be before he finds out the truth, finds out that, at the very moment of regaining his treasure, he has been robbed, robbed by him who was his friend? And the friend, then, that man of granite, how will he bear himself? Will even his relentless determination stand before that terrible double knowledge of his own unconscious treachery to his comrade and of the mortal danger to his beloved? A stronger man, even than he, might well go mad! . . . As for the pitiable second husband, the old man, who counts for so little in the midst of these three young lives, and is yet so stricken in all he holds most dearhis dignity, his honour, his pathetic senile confidence and affection -what of him? Oh, antique, silent house, what palpitating drama do you not hold, this desolate dawn! Those three men,

each with his passion and his claim-his just claim-and the woman there, lying so still! . . .

So M. Châtelard mused, with ever and anon a keen eye to the patient, a stealthy touch on the pulse.

VOL. XVIII.-NO. 106, N.S.

29

A pale shaft of light pierced in between the curtains, and, like a slowly shifting finger, moved straightly till it pointed to the bed. M. Châtelard started, rubbed his eyes, adjusted his spectacles, and stared again. The heavy, half-loosened tress that lay across the sheet shone silver in the light-the tress that had been so richly golden, crown of that haughty head, only the evening before.

'I have heard of such a thing,' said the doctor to himself, 'but it is the first time that I have seen it with my own eyes.' He bent over the pillow and curiously lifted the strand of hair. There was no illusion about it. Rosamond's glorious hair was white.

CHAPTER V.

'I THINK you had better get your uncle a little whisky, or something,' said Lady Aspasia to Baby, as, upon their ejection into the passage, she guided the poor gentleman's vague footsteps towards her own room. 'Come in here, Arty; there's a good

fire.'

Sir Arthur turned his eyes upon her with a vacant look, catching at surprise.

Yes, my room. But, Lord, I don't think any of us need mind the convenances to-night!'

She gave a dry laugh. At least, whatever rules were transgressed now-they only regarded him and her: the thought came with sudden and exceeding pleasantness upon her; and that heart of hers, atrophied by long disuse, was stirred. She looked at the helpless, dazed creature, sinking into her armchair, with a softness that, even in his most gallant youth, his image had not evoked. Good fellow' as she was, Lady Aspasia was yet a woman in the hidden fibre.

Young Aspasia, shuffling about in her slippers, yet still fleet of foot, broke in upon their silence with the decanter. Shivering, partly with fatigue, partly with the chill of the dawn, she stood, vaguely watching the elder lady administer a stiff bumper to Sir Arthur.

Complete as was the turmoil in her own mind, deep as was her distress and anxiety anent Rosamond, Baby's sense of humour was irresistibly acute: the vision of Lady Aspasia, incompletely attired under her motor coat, her loose coiled hair (divested of the