al addresses without
delay. It was signed, "Dubravnik."

"Is this the note my servant is to take?" she asked, incredulously.

"Yes."

I folded the apparently blank sheet with the other and placed them both
in the envelope which I had already addressed.

"You see there is no harm in that note, even if the men outside should
read it," I added, when the servant had departed. "Your man, who is of
course a spy, will read the note, which I purposely left unsealed, as
soon as he is out of sight of the house. In an hour every man who is
waiting to take my life will be in prison. If your brother is among
them, he will not be harmed and you----"

I hesitated, and she raised her eyes to mine and said:

"Well, and I?"

"You will have to do as you have agreed to do, obey me." I hesitated
again and then with a desperate courage, added: "Love, honor, and obey
me."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE POWER OF THE FRATERNITY

The princess did not start--she did not even look surprised when I
uttered the strange sentence, but her great round eyes welled up in
tears, and she caught her breath in a half-sob once. Then, without
uttering a word, she extended her hand and placed it in mine, and we
remained thus, for a moment silent. Presently, in a low whisper, I
heard her repeat after me, the words, "Love, honor, and obey;" and she
added: "As long as we both shall live."

With a quick gesture that was purely feminine, she withdrew her hand
from mine and thrust the clustering hair away from her temples. Then
she went to the window and gazed upon the snow clad city, and thus she
remained for several minutes.

Presently she returned and came back to where I was standing.

"It is strange, is it not, Mr. Derrington?" she asked in a low voice.
"I do not think that I am myself to-day. It is hard to realize that
this is Zara de Echeveria who speaks to you now. I am like another
person; it is as though another spirit had entered my body, and I seem
to act without a will of my own. It began last night when you first
entered my presence. It was evident to me when I saw you apparently
asleep in the garden, knowing that you had overheard the conversation
between my brother and myself; it asserted itself when we stood
together under the green light later in the evening, when you told me
that I must keep the engagement made with you to-day, and when you
entered this room a few hours ago, it seemed as though you belonged to
me--as though you had s