"Hush!" continued Dora, "your ambition is realised. Your fortune is more than doubled; but when you are counting it up, think of me, your wife, in the arms of that man, every fibre of my powerless body revolting at the kisses of his polluted lips. Yes, the lips of that libertine have soiled mine; on my face, on my arms, he pressed his burning kisses. Look, look at this arm. See for yourself the mark that will not go. I am stained, contaminated. Oh! am I mad? No, I have drunk the bitter draught, I have gone through the mire of degradation; and now, is the nightmare ended? Are you satisfied, or shall I call him back to offer him the rest?" "I will kill him!" cried Philip. "Ah, rather kill me; that would be more generous," exclaimed Dora. "Take your money, and now let me go--unless," she added, with a sneer, "you have some other War Minister that you wish to take your invention; think, I am here to pay the price they may exact for their approval." "Dora, this is madness--you are out of your mind." "I soon should be if I stayed here." Dora broke off suddenly. The coming of the servant flashed across her mind. He had brought a message. What was it? "Yes, yes, of course, I remember. Gabrielle sent for me a few moments ago--she had called the doctor to Eva--Eva! Ah, let me go to my child," she cried, waving Philip aside as he was going to speak again. But before she reached the door, Gabrielle had opened it. "Are you coming?" said the poor girl, with tears in her voice. "Eva?" "Yes, she is worse; it is diphtheria." Dora realised now the full import of the former message. With one horror-struck look at the distressed white face before her, she rushed from the room uttering a broken cry-- "Eva!" Gabrielle followed after her, and Philip was left crushed, stunned, incapable yet of understanding clearly the terrible scene which he had just witnessed, or the new terror with which he was brought face to face. XIV EVA Philip dropped into an armchair. His forehead was bathed in perspiration. He was seized with a convulsive trembling, caused by the rage that he felt at not being able to avenge there and then the outrageous conduct of General Sabaroff towards his wife. If he had known at that moment where to find the Russian, he would have gone straightway and had it out with him. He went through a torment of impotent fury and disappointment at thinking that his arrival had been but a few moments too late. "Fool that I was!" he cried, "what have I done? Then Dora thinks"--he dared not utter his thought--"and, if so, I am guilty in her mind of the vilest, the most despicable act that a man can commit--it is a frightful idea! And yet my indifference, my insistence that Dora should receive that man, when she implored me not to oblige her to submit to his company--Sabaroff loves her still then? Or does he, too, believe that he was encouraged by me? Oh, but the thought is horrible! The idea of it is maddening. Fool that I have been!"