“One moment!” he said, his voice vibrating with suppressed passion. “What you feel, or imagine you feel, is no actual business of mine. I have set myself to force a secret of Nature from the darkness in which it has been concealed for ages--a secret only dimly guessed at by the sect of the Rosicrucians--and I know myself to be on the brink of a vast scientific discovery. If you fail me now, all is lost----” “I shall not fail you,” she interposed quietly. “You may--you may!” and he gave a gesture half of wrath, half of appeal. “Who knows what you will do when the final ordeal comes! With these strange ideas of yours--born of feminine hysteria, I suppose--who can foretell the folly of your actions?--or the obedience? And yet you promised--you promised----” She turned to him with a smile. “I promised--and I shall fulfil!” she said. “What a shaken spirit is yours!--You cannot trust--you cannot believe! I have told you, and I repeat it--that I place my life in your hands to do what you will with it--to end it even, if so you decide. But if it continues to be a life that _lives_, on its present line of change, it will be a life above you and beyond you! That is what I wish you to understand.” She drew her scarf about her and moved along the terrace to re-enter the lounge of the hotel. The outline of her figure was the embodiment of grace, and the ease of her step suggested an assured dignity. He followed her,--perplexed, and in a manner ashamed at having shown anger. Gently she bade him “good-night” and went at once to her room. Madame Dimitrius had retired quite an hour previously. Once alone, she sat down to consider herself and the position in which she was placed. Before her was her mirror, and she saw reflected therein a young face, and the lustre of young eyes darkly blue and brilliant, which gave light to the features as the sun gives light to the petals of a flower. She saw a dazzlingly clear skin as fair as the cup of a lily, and she studied each point of perfection with the critical care of an analyst or dissector. Every line of age or worry had vanished,--and the bright hair of which she had always been pardonably proud, had gained a deeper sheen, a richer hue, while it had grown much more luxuriant and beautiful. “And now,” she mused, “now,--how is it that when I can attract love, I no longer want it? That I do not care if I never saw a human being again? That human beings bore and disgust me? That something else fills me,--desires to which I can give no name?” She rose from her chair and went to the window. It opened out to a small private balcony facing the Mediterranean, and she stood there as in a dream, looking at the deep splendour of the southern sky. One great star, bright as the moon itself, shone just opposite to her, like a splendid jewel set on dark velvet. She drew a deep breath. “To this I belong!” she said, softly--“To this--and only this!”