"You must call me back when you look at our Danube picture, and, when the ban is lifted, if I succeed, you will hear of me. If I fail," she brokenly murmured, "then, forget me--think of me as only one who, a stranger in a strange land, has shared Life's cup with you, in a gleam of passing sunshine." There were bright tears trembling upon her down-dropped lashes. "And I shall have nothing of you! Not even a picture," hoarsely murmured Clayton. "I will not be denied. I shall see you again. I will follow you!" He was startled by the ashen pallor of her face. "You must not! You dare not!" she cried, in a sudden agitation. "It would mean our eternal parting! For I will not have my plighted honor forfeit. Promise me, if you ever hope to see me again, that you will not follow me!" There was the ring of truth in her words, and even the accent of fear in her appeal. Catching at a last straw, Clayton pleaded before the word of dismissal should fall from her trembling lips. "I must see you again," he begged. "I leave all to you, and I swear to obey you in all things." The beautiful woman bowed her head in her hands. "See how I trust you," she brightly said, meeting his glance frankly at last. "Be at the arch in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, next Sunday at two. "If you have a closed carriage we can drive an hour in the park. If we must say farewell, we can say it then. For even when I met you first, in that crowded street, I felt that in some strange freemasonry of Life, we were to be friends." A single frightened, warning gesture recalled him to his senses, as Irma pointed to her nodding companion. "You do not know how jealous artists are. "One single imprudence would be my professional ruin; my career would be blasted. Trust to me! Obey me; swear that you will not follow me, and we shall meet again, for I would not lose you from my life." He took the roses from her bosom and kissed them. "Go, now," she whispered, "but only that we may meet again! I have your promise." "Loyal to the death," swore Clayton, as he kissed her trembling hands and then stole away, leaving her there alone with pallid lips and a wildly beating heart. Clayton had taken up the burden of his unfinished day's business before the carriage left the "Bavaria," and swiftly traversing Fourth Avenue, passed along to the Thirty-fourth Street ferry. There was but one occupant, however, for Madame Raffoni had silently disappeared before the diva, heavily veiled, entered the vehicle. Clayton wondered at the protracted absence of his office boy, ignorant that the young double spy was standing before the Restaurant Bavaria watching Leah Einstein's furtive disappearance. And neither the lad, astounded as his mother's unaccustomed finery, nor the love-blinded Randall Clayton ever knew that "Madame Raffoni" hastened to Magdal's Pharmacy to whisper to Mr. Fritz Braun tidings which brought a surging swell of triumph into that arch plotter's heart.