But Evarne did not doubt--did not question. The very last words she had heard spoken in that studio were to the effect that Morris had come on purpose to submit himself to this operation. What room, then, was there for suspicion regarding the identity of this man whose face was concealed with the plaster mask? Upon the first glance she averted her eyes, standing trembling. After a minute of enduring this agony of repulsion she spoke aloud--unconsciously aloud--quite softly to herself. Her voice, though low, was curiously discordant and hoarse, pulsating with the powerful emotions that were so rapidly proving more than she could bear. "Oh, it's wicked--it's cruel--it's unjust! He will tell everything after I'm married. He will glory in it. I know him. He is a devil incarnate! What have we done, Geoff and I, that we should be tortured here on earth? Oh, what can I do to save us both--what can I do? To be so helpless--to be driven utterly helpless into a corner like this--oh, I can't--I can't endure it! What am I to do? Tell me--tell me! I want help--help of any kind. Is there nothing Here or There can hear and help me?" Her voice faded away. She stood, turning her head from side to side, looking around wildly. Her brow contracted itself into deeper furrows. In the silence she unconsciously bit at her finger-nails, tearing one down to the quick--yet she felt no pain. Quite suddenly there awoke in her memory an almost obliterated recollection. Loudly and wrathfully she cried-- "Sekhet--you have failed me--you have forsaken me! I prayed to you once. Now you must answer my prayer, for I invoke you. You are great now as ever. I demand your help--demand it! How can I ensure that man's eternal silence? Tell me--tell me!" She stood for a moment with trembling forefinger outstretched, indicating the motionless form upon the divan. Did she expect some mystic voice to respond to her appeal? No sound broke the silence, save the fly which hummed and buzzed and flung itself with blind unavailing endeavour against the window-panes. But into her brain--that poor brain so tortured and goaded by cruel anxiety, by a bitter insult, by a great, passionate love threatened with destruction--sprang the instinctive thought of that primæval resource: "Death! Death! Only death can bring eternal silence!" Swiftly, yet very surely, a strange, unfamiliar influence had enwrapped this rebel against Fate. Who can declare authoritatively what supreme Power behind the Veil she had not summoned in that moment's distraught and reckless invocation? Be that as it may, she became obsessed by one of those all-mighty, dominating impulses that conquer the will, the judgment, even the desire; that crush down previously accepted ideas of right and wrong, forcing a fresh, oft-times dreaded, idea masterfully into a shrinking heart and mind. And the message that had come to Evarne was terrible--terrific! "Call Death to your aid! Kill your enemy! Kill him while there is yet time!"