"Go, leave me now," said Rosamond, "and let no one disturb me. Leave me!" she ordered sharply, as once more the ayah hesitated. And Jani slunk away, dragging noiseless feet, her dim mind filled with inarticulate foreboding. Rosamond drew a long breath as the hangings fell. Surely, surely, if there be anything to which one has a right, in this grinding world, it is to be alone with one’s dead! * * * * * She took the key from where she had herself placed it ready to her hand on the table: a black rusty thing amid all the jewels and costly trinkets which it was Sir Arthur Gerardine’s pleasure to provide for the adornment of the most beautiful of all his attributes—his wife. She knelt down and inserted it in the lock; and then she paused, passing her hand across her damp forehead. Inexorable fate! She for years had walked in the company of some creature of horror, the face of which had been mercifully veiled; she had carried a mortal anguish cunningly lulled to sleep. Now her hand must lift the veil.... Now no opiate would further serve her: she must face the pain. For a moment yet she hesitated: the last recoil of the flesh. Then the courage which despair or resignation lends—that rise of the spirit to meet the inevitable which seldom fails even the lowest human being at the end—brought back strength sufficient. She turned the key, drew out the rusty hasp, and opened the casket of her dead past. * * * * * The breath that rushed at her from the gaping box seized her by the throat. The unfading scent of the faded orange blossom; the very atmosphere of the lost presence, of the tobacco he had been wont to use, of the Russian-leather pocket-books she had given him; a faint, faint whisper of the English lavender her hands had been so careful to set for him, since he loved it. And, over all, through all, some odour of the siege: of strife, fever, bloodshed, and death—eastern, indescribable, terrible! Her soul sickened away. No, the past was not dead! It had but lain in wait for her all these years. It had but gathered force to spring upon her in the fated hour. None can escape destiny. Here was the cup she had refused to drain; here were the tears of which she had cheated her heart; here, even, was the intensity of her lost youth, that she might mourn the husband of her girlhood as it had been written she must mourn. She rose to her feet. A cry rang in her ears like the cry of an animal hurt; and she never knew that it had come from her own lips. Through gathering mists she saw Jani reappear and run towards her; and, summoning all her failing energies in one supreme effort, she called out in distinct tones: "Close the box and let no one touch it." Then she fell like a mown lily, straight and long, beside it. *CHAPTER IX*