"From that day in Cairo--oh! how can I tell you! I began the life of an adventuress! I do not deny it. I came here to confess it to you. I went to New York, to London, to Paris, to Petrograd; I went all over the world. I had beautiful dresses, jewels, admiration--all that women live for! And in the midst of it all mine was the life of the cloister; no nun could be more secluded! "I see the question in your eyes--why did I do it? Why did I lure men into the clutches of Fo-Hi? For this is what I did; and when I have failed, I have been punished." Stuart shrank from her. "You confess," he said hoarsely, "that you knowing lured men to _death?"_ "Ah, no!" she whispered, looking about her fearfully--"never! never! I swear it--never!" "Then"--he stared at her blankly--"I do not understand you!" "I dare not make it clearer--now: I dare not--dare not! But _believe_ me! Oh, please, please," she pleaded, her soft voice dropping to a whisper--"believe me! If you know what I risked to tell you so much, you would be more merciful. A horror which cannot be described"--again she shuddered--"will fall upon me if _he_ ever suspects! You think me young and full of life, with all the world before me. You do not know. I am, literally, _already dead!_ Oh! I have followed a strange career. I have danced in a Paris theatre and I have sold flowers in Rome; I have had my box at the Opera and I have filled opium pipes in a den at San Francisco! But never, never have I lured a man to his death. And through it all, from first to last, no man has so much as kissed my finger-tips! "At a word, at a sign, I have been compelled to go from Monte Carlo to Buenos Ayres; at another sign from there to Tokio! Chunda Lal has guarded me as only the women of the East are guarded. Yet, in his fierce way, he has always tried to befriend me, he has always been faithful. But ah! I shrink from him many times, in horror, because I know _what_ he is! But I may not tell you. Look! Chunda Lal has never been out of sound of this whistle"--she drew a little silver whistle from her dress--"for a moment since that day when he came into the house of the slave-dealer in Mecca, except----" And now, suddenly, a wave of glorious colour flooded her beautiful face and swiftly she lowered her eyes, replacing the little whistle. Stuart's rebellious heart leapt madly, for whatever he might think of her almost incredible story, that sweet blush was no subterfuge, no product of acting. "You almost drive me mad," he said in low voice, resembling the tones of repressed savagery. "You tell me so much, but withhold so much that I am more bewildered than ever. I can understand your helplessness in an Eastern household, but why should you obey the behests of this veiled monster in London, in New York, in Paris?" She did not raise her eyes. "I dare not tell you. But I dare not disobey him." "Who is he!"