The Persian took no heed thereof. He did not even seem to hear. But, beneath those half-closed lids, not a movement of the woman escaped his penetrating gaze. Though possessed with a vague assurance of his own dark powers, controlled by his nerve and coolness, Hormazd could read in that fair, inscrutable face far more than in the magic scrolls. And as he scanned it now, from under half-shut lids, it was fixed and rigid as marble, pale, too, with an unearthly whiteness. She seemed to have forgotten his presence. She seemed to look into space, yet even as he gazed, the expression of that wonderfully fair face changed. Theodora's eyes were fierce, her countenance bore a rigid expression, bright, cold, unearthly, like one who defies and subdues mortal pain. The tools of love and ambition are sharp and double-edged, and Hormazd knew it was safer to trust to wind and waves than to the whims of woman. But already her mood had changed and her face had resumed its habitual expression of inscrutable repose. "Is it the gods or the devil who sway and torture us and mock at our helplessness?" she turned to the Oriental, then, without waiting his reply, she concluded with a searching glance that seemed to read his very heart. "Report speaks true of you. Unknowingly, unwittingly you have pointed the way. Farewell!" Long after she had disappeared Hormazd stared at the spot where her swiftly retiring form had been engulfed by the darkness. Then, weighing the purse, which she had left as an acknowledgment of his services, and finding it sufficiently heavy to satisfy his avarice, the Persian stood for a time wrapped in deep thoughts. "That phantom at least I could not evoke!" he muttered to himself. "Who dares to cross the path of Hormazd?" The thunder seemed to answer, for a crash that seemed to split the seven hills asunder caused the house to rock as with the force of an earthquake. With a shudder the Persian extinguished the fire in the brazier and retreated to his chamber, while outside thunder and lightning and rain lashed the summer night with the force of a tropical hurricane. CHAPTER IV PERSEPHONÉ It was not Tristan's other self, conjured by the Persian from the mystic realms of night which Theodora had seen outlined against the dark curtain that screened the entrance into the Oriental's laboratory. The object of her craving had, indeed, been present in the body, seeking in the storm that suddenly lashed the city the shelter of an apparently deserted abode. Thus he had unwittingly strayed into the domain of the astrologer, finding the door of his abode standing ajar after Theodora had entered.