The skilfully-aimed shot struck home instantly. A bright wave of colour swept from Alma’s throat up to her brow. Her eyes shone like two pale fires in the dusk, and her hand grasped the rail on which it was resting till the bones and sinews stood out distinct in it. She seemed to gasp for breath a moment before she found her voice, but when she spoke her tone seemed to ring and vibrate like a bell in the sudden strength of her unloosed passion. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, you innocent-looking little Isma! You are wiser than I am after all. I did not know the meaning of that word till Olga’s letter fell from the sky, but I know it now. My God, how I hate that woman!” “She is not a woman,” replied Isma, speaking in the unconscious pride of her pure descent. “She is a baseborn animal, for she has used her beauty for the vilest ends, yet I am glad to hear you say that you hate her for Alan’s sake, as I do, and--and for Alexis’s. While you can hate you can love, and some day you will love Alan--the real Alan, not your ideal lover--all the better because you have hated Olga for his sake.” “What?” almost wailed Alma, in the intensity of her anger and misery. “After he has held her in his arms--after his lips have kissed hers--after”-- “Yes, even after that. When your first bitterness has passed, as mine has, you will be more just, and remember the influence under which he did so--if he did. Do you hold yourself responsible for what you think or do in your dreams, or do you not believe what Alan said in his letter about the drug? You know too much about chemistry not to know that such horrible poisons have existed for centuries.” “Yes, yes, I know that, and I know that he has no share in the moral guilt; but how can I ever forget he has been what those cruel words of Olga’s told us she had made of him?” replied Alma, her face growing cold and hard again as she spoke. “Alma,” said Isma, with gentle dignity, yet with a note of keen reproach in her voice, “surely you are forgetting that you are speaking of my brother as well as of your lover. No, I am not angry, for I am too sad myself not to understand your sorrow. But I want you to remember that I who have lost both a lover and a brother am asking you to be patient and to hope with me. “We have never seen Alan and Alexis as they are. We only remember them as two handsome boys who had never seen or known evil. When we meet them again, as I firmly believe we shall, they will be men who have passed through the fire; for if they do not pass through it and come out stronger and better than they were, rest assured we shall never meet on earth again. “Alan would no more come to you now than you would go to him. When he believes himself worthy of you he will come for you as Alexis will come for me, and then”--