'Destiny has not that power over us. I who speak to you have suffered, mademoiselle, but I have not found that suffering degrades. It chills, perhaps.' 'Ah, you speak of men. I am a woman; it is another thing that! But behold me who discourse thus to you, who see me for the first time--who think me mad.' 'Oh, Countess!...' 'Do you know why I say to you these things, which I have said before to no one--to no one, Monsieur Campbell? It is because they grew in my mind as I looked at your picture--your picture, that is now mine as well. Many hours have I looked at it, and I said, "The man who has conceived that he has known what are the secrets of life. If I meet him I will tell him these secrets of mine; he is worthy to hear them. He can interpret mysteries." But your interpretation is profound, monsieur; not everyone can read it.' 'If I could always paint for such as you, Countess, I might some day realise my ideal.' She stood meditatively, her hands hanging folded and her eyes dreaming. 'When I saw that picture,' she said at length, 'I felt that it was the picture of my soul. There she sits within her rampart, which was once whole and sound. But now there is a breach, and that breach will never be built up again--never, never. Once the enemy has entered; and though for years and years she may watch and guard, yet at some hour, some moment even, her eyes will droop and her hand waver.... Then he springs and clutches her, and it is ended. See him where he lurks there outside among the bushes. He waits; he is sure. And she--regard that terror in her eyes. Monsieur, it is a sublime thing to be a great painter.' She held out her hand to me impulsively; there were tears in her eyes, but she smiled them away with a wilful defiance. Our hands just touched; then she withdrew hers. 'You see I have not had your picture for nothing; I have looked at it,' she said. I was deeply touched. 'You have seen through it into the heart that conceived it.' 'Let us talk of other things,' she exclaimed abruptly in a lighter tone. 'Come, let us walk, else madame my mother will think again that I am lost.' We resumed our promenade accordingly, but for awhile in silence. 'You look at my ruby. Do you find it handsome?' She had been turning and twisting the ring upon her finger, and my eyes had more than once been drawn to it. Almost as soon as she had spoken she slipped the ring off and laid it in my hand. 'It is a real antique,' I said, concealing the surprise this sudden act inspired in me. 'It is an heirloom in your family, perhaps?' 'It is a magic ring; there is a spell connected with it,' said the Countess, laughing. 'Let me not be the breaker of the spell,' I rejoined, holding it towards her. But instead of taking it from me, she extended her long taper finger, and I put the ring on it. 'There, you have put it on, and now it will never come off,' she said with a strange smile. 'It is the ring of my destiny.' 'Yours should be a rich destiny, then.'