his glass of wine untasted.

"What is the matter?" asked D'Arbino.

"Have you any dislike, count, to that particular wine?" inquired the
cavaliere.

"The Yellow Mask!" whispered Fabio. "The Yellow Mask again!"

They all three turned round directly toward the door. But it was too
late--the figure had disappeared.

"Does any one know who this Yellow Mask is?" asked Finello. "One may
guess by the walk that the figure is a woman's. Perhaps it may be the
strange color she has chosen for her dress, or perhaps her stealthy way
of moving from room to room; but there is certainly something mysterious
and startling about her."

"Startling enough, as the count would tell you," said D'Arbino. "The
Yellow Mask has been responsible for his loss of spirits and change of
complexion, and now she has prevented him even from drinking his wine."

"I can't account for it," said Fabio, looking round him uneasily; "but
this is the third room into which she has followed me--the third time
she has seemed to fix her eyes on me alone. I suppose my nerves are
hardly in a fit state yet for masked balls and adventures; the sight of
her seems to chill me. Who can she be?"

"If she followed me a fourth time," said Finello, "I should insist on
her unmasking."

"And suppose she refused?" asked his friend

"Then I should take her mask off for her."

"It is impossible to do that with a woman," said Fabio. "I prefer trying
to lose her in the crowd. Excuse me, gentlemen, if I leave you to finish
the wine, and then to meet me, if you like, in the great ballroom."

He retired as he spoke, put on his mask, and joined the dancers
immediately, taking care to keep always in the most crowded corner of
the apartment. For some time this plan of action proved successful, and
he saw no more of the mysterious yellow domino. Ere long, however, some
new dances were arranged, in which the great majority of the persons in
the ballroom took part; the figures resembling the old English country
dances in this respect, that the ladies and gentlemen were placed in
long rows opposite to each other. The sets consisted of about twenty
couples each, placed sometimes across, and sometimes along the
apartment; and the spectators were all required to move away on either
side, and range themselves close to the walls. As Fabio among others
complied with this necessity, he looked down a row of dancers waiting
during the performance of the orchestral prelude; and there, watc