Yes, one can see it, though she cannot stay it—one whose glance has faithfully swept the crowd ahead of Gloria all the way along. Only a pair of dark grey faithful eyes, with a wondrous wealth of lashes shading their intelligent depths, only a girl in years, yet with the light of genius stamped on the beautiful forehead above them. She sees and recognises Victoire Hester in spite of her changed aspect and the mad look in her eyes. Léonie Stanley sees the revolver raised and the assassin’s finger on the trigger. Deep into her horse’s flanks she drives her spurs. He springs furiously forward, brushes roughly against Saladin and his rider, and covers like a shield the person of Gloria de Lara. Only just in time though! The revolver’s note rings forth, speeding from its lips the messenger of death; yet another note, and it claims two victims for its own. One is a wild, pale, haggard woman stretched out upon the street, from whose temple blood is flowing, the other a young officer of the White Guards’ Regiment, who has fallen forward on the grey neck of her horse, and whose blood is staining his dappled well-groomed coat. Dear little Léonie, she has not lived in vain; she has proved her love and gratitude at last; she has shown how ill-fitting was the cloak of Judas, in which the wicked had striven to clothe her. She has lived to prove her gratitude, and is faithful unto death. [Illustration] CHAPTER X. =1999.= It is a lovely scene on which that balloon looks down,—a scene of peaceful villages and well-tilled fields, a scene of busy towns and happy working people, a scene of peace and prosperity, comfort and contentment, which only a righteous Government could produce and maintain. The balloon is passing over London, a London vastly changed from the London of 1900. Somehow it wears a countrified aspect, for every street has its double row of shady trees, and gardens and parks abound at every turn. This London, unlike its predecessor, is not smoke-begrimed, nor can it boast of dirty courts and filthy alleys like the London of 1900. Every house, great and small, bears the aspect of cleanliness and comfort, for poverty and misery are things no longer known. A stranger in the balloon looks down with interest upon this scene. His gaze, wandering across the mighty city, is arrested by two gleaming gilded statues crowning a monster edifice, upon whose cap of glittering panes the sun is shining brightly. “Is that the Hall of Liberty?” he inquires of his guide. “Yes,” answers the person addressed, “the same as was raised a century ago by the great Duchess of Ravensdale, of noble memory.” “Is she buried there?” asks the stranger dreamily.