"You shall ask for it when you have done my bidding," she murmurs softly, and holds out her hand for the clasp of that one whose stains of blood-guiltiness are to receive yet another addition, at her bidding. He takes hers, and bends down and presses his lips upon it fervently. "I will do your will," he says; "he shall live to suffer. But, madame, remember, I am no fool to be trifled with. If you fail in your part of the bargain it will be at your own peril. Neither man nor woman has ever baulked me of my will, who has not lived to rue it. You may have fooled a score of men, but you shall not fool me! Love like mine may be play to rouse, but it is death when roused." She looks him calmly in the face. "I have no intention of deceiving you. Promise me that Keith Athelstone shall have but a few days' life left--and----" Her glance promises the rest. It has all the intoxication, the responsive meaning, that can inflame men's passions--that has ever swayed them to her will. It sways him now. He draws her to his heart with a fierce and sudden tenderness, and she lets his lips rest unrebuked upon her own. "I promise," he murmurs; and she knows he means it. The telegram that has reached Lady Jean has been despatched from Monte Carlo. It contains these lines: "_Sir Francis Vavasour lies here dangerously ill--it is feared with typhoid fever. He asks constantly for you. Come at once._" When Lady Jean is once more alone she reads the message with a contemptuous laugh. "He must be mad," she says. "I to run the risk of infection--I to turn sick-nurse! I to run the gauntlet of scandal and discussion for--him! Pshaw! if he wants a ministering angel, let him send to Lauraine. It is her _metier_, not mine." Then she goes to her writing-table and takes pen and ink and writes these lines: "Your husband is dangerously ill. The enclosed telegram will explain. Keith Athelstone was severely wounded in a duel fought in Paris this evening, and he has only a few days to live. If you wish to see him alive come at once. He is at Lady Jean Salomans' house, No. 13, Rue Victoire Paris." This letter she seals and addresses and despatches immediately. Then, with that same light of triumph in her eyes, that same relentless and unsparing hate in her heart, she goes to her room and to rest. No ill dreams disturb her--no sleepless hours of weary wakefulness. She has never known remorse in all her life, and in her ears the "still, small voice" of conscience has long ceased to whisper. And as her eyes close in sleep to-night she only thinks: "Vengeance is mine!" CHAPTER XXXIV Alone in the dreary solitude of Falcon's Chase, Lauraine receives that message from her enemy. It is early morning; the sun is shining, the birds in the forest avenues are singing their gladdest and loudest welcome to spring; she stands at the window of her morning-room and reads those lines penned in the Rue Victoire, and a great darkness seems to come over her.