"Oh, my God! my God!" she cried. "Let me die--only not this horror!" There the phantom stood. Its scarlet mantle glimmered almost black. She dared not turn her back. She dared not shut her eyes. He made neither sign, nor beck, nor nod. But, like a crazy shadow, he circled round and round her, soundlessly, as if he were treading on velvet. "Keep off--keep off!" she shrieked. "Protect me, oh my God! Madness is closing in upon me!" And with a sudden, desperate movement she rushed at the phantom to tear the crimson mask from its face. Her arms penetrated empty air. With a moan she sank upon the floor. Her arms spread out, she lay upon her face. The swoon held her captive once more. But the dream was kinder to Hellayne than life. She stood upon a rocky promontory in her own far-off land of Provence. Before her spread the peace of the wide, glimmering sea. What are these golden columns through which the water glistens? A man stood within the ruins of a great temple, the sea before him, violet hills behind. From the summit of an island mountain in the bay the lilt of a tender song was drifting upwards. And, as he sang, the great sea stirred. It heaved, it writhed, it rose. With onward movement, as of a coiling serpent, the whole vast liquid brilliance rushed upon the temple. Mighty billows of beryl curved and broke in sheets of white foam. "Fear nothing," said the man. "Your river has found the sea!" It was Tristan's voice. From the distance came the faint tolling of a bell, forlorn, as from a forest chapel, infinitely sweet and tremulous. In a faint light, like a mountain mist at dawn, the whole scene faded away, and Hellayne was in a garden--a rose garden. She had been there before, but how different it all was. She was being smothered in roses. Flame roses every one--curled into fiery petal whorls, dancing in the garden dusk under a red, red sky. Ah! There it is again, the terrible face, leering from among the branches, the face that froze the blood in her veins, that made her heart turn cold as ice and filled her soul with horror. It is the Count Laval. He is seeking her, seeking her everywhere. Horns are peering out from under his scarlet cap, and he has long claws. Now she is fleeing through the rose garden, faster, faster, ever faster. But he is gaining upon her. From bosquet to bosquet, from thicket to thicket; she hears his approaching steps. Now she can almost feel his breath upon her neck. At last he has overtaken her. Now he is circling round her, nearer and nearer, extending his hands towards her, while she follows his movement with horror-stricken eyes. But her strength, her body, are paralyzed. As his hands close round her throat, his eyes gloating with dull malice, she covers her face with her hands and falls with a shriek. And as she lies there before him, dead, he looks down upon her with a strange smile upon his lips and casts his scarlet mantle over her. Once more Hellayne is in the throes of a swoon.