“It is not much that a man can save On the sands of life--in the straits of Time, Who swims in sight of the third great wave, That never a swimmer shall cross or climb. Some waif washed up with the strays and spars That ebb-tide throws to the shore and the stars. Weed from the water--grass from a grave-- A broken blossom--a ruined rhyme!” Through the mantle of dusk the lights shine brightly in the Place Vendôme, but the room in the Hotel Bristol looks dark and dreary, save for the fitful flame of the fire, when Zai, who has grown tired of her own society, hears footsteps on the stairs. All the long afternoon she has been alone; even “Baby,” her resource on most occasions, has slept through the hours as sound as the Seven Sleepers. So, when a human tread falls welcome on her ear, she forgets that it is not quite the thing for a countess to rush out on the landing of a hotel. “Is that you, Delaval?” she cries in a bright ringing voice, for she is longing to see him again, longing with a great longing that will not allow her to study the _convenances_. But she draws back as the figure of a stranger, a tall, handsome man, with a face after Velasquez, confronts her. “Pardonne, Madame!” he says in a very low voice--and there is a gentle sympathetic ring in it, for De Belcour is a thorough gentleman by nature as well as by birth--“I have a mission to fulfil, a mission which pains me more than I can say,” he adds earnestly, as he looks on the fair sweet young face of his rival’s wife. But Zai does not speak, something--a dreadful instinct--seems to gather round her heart, like an iron band. She stands as white as an image of marble and as motionless as if she were rooted to the ground--with the glad laugh on her pretty lips hushed into an awful silence, and with a terrible fear filling her big grey eyes, as, slowly passing her, they bear their burden into the room, and place it upon the very couch where she had lain this afternoon full of hope and happiness and with the sunshine of life dancing in her eyes and breaking into smiles on her mouth, for Zai is young and lovely and rich, and she adores her husband and the child that God has given her. Not a word falls from her now, and she never stirs from the spot where she stands, but all the while she vigilantly watches the movements of the men, and follows them with great piteous looks, and her little hands clench and twist together in terror and despair. “He is not dead!” De Belcour whispers, “but--_dying_, I fear.” “_Not dead!_” The words break from her almost in a shout of joy, and she springs past him and crouches down beside what they have brought her--beside all that is left of _him_. Her eyes are quite dry, and glitter, undimmed by a single tear, as she sways backwards and forwards in the plenitude and abjectness of her suffering. Then she raises a white, forlorn face, and falters: “Is no one coming to him?”