This time it was a lady's boudoir that was revealed, of immense size, imperially furnished--a thousand mirrors flashing back its chandeliers. There was no trace of the Rabbi who had just entered that very door, instead, a beautiful girl of about twenty summers glided out to the cooling breeze. Had it not been for her Iron Haquin would have been dumbfounded at the inexplicable shift of rooms. But the moment he set eyes on her so much greater a surprise beset him that it drove all other out of mind. It was the woman of whom he had spoken to the Bohemian--the woman who had cut friendship, and all but wrought his death--the woman whom still he loved. He strode forth without a second thought. "It is her very self!" he cried. The girl smiled at him as in recognition. Not the least surprise did she show at this strange meeting. She called him by his name. "Iron Haquin!" "You know me after all these years?" "Who better among men should I know after all that passed between us? And did you not first know me?" "That is not the same thing. I am twenty years older, but you--I can hardly believe my eyes--are the girl of twenty years ago. Has time, too, been fooled by those eyes of yours which I have often said would split a lover's coffin?" "Believe me, my friend, Time's ravages are here as surely as that you will never see them. It is your love now, as ever, that blinds your eyes and drapes a faded woman in your poetry. When I am dead, and my body an ordinary for worms, you will see me still in fancy's eye just the girl you see me now. And by the same token you, that speak of being twenty years older, are in my eyes the brave and innocent boy whose lips were once my food." "Then you loved me all the time, after all?" "At that age, what did I know of love--or loathing?" "But the Rabbi?" "He is old," she cried, "past passion. Ah, Haquin, you would not know him now!" "I cannot make it out that you are still sweet and twenty. Here is a waist would warm the arm of death! You are, if anything, lovelier, transfigured, haloed. You would hurry the pace of a star! Tell me true now, is it not some elixir of the Rabbi's that has pinnacled you beyond the teeth of Time?" She laughed. "Elixir of his! Why he would swallow it himself! And to prove how little I lean on him you may kill him if you will! "An assassination!" gasped the bandit, "the man knows no sword play." He was thinking, as he spoke, of the primitive device by which his rival had once tried to get rid of him. "A duel!" returned the Jewess, "for if he knows no sword play he can measure swords with steel they forge below. You are a tall man of your hands when knives are stripping, but at his trade you are the Rabbi's fool. You will need all you know to join issue with him in ceremonial of magic. No later than this morning must you pit your strength against him, for to that you were decoyed hither."