osition here--alone
with you. Whatever our personal relations, a delicacy for my feelings
must warn you----"

"Marishka!" he broke in. "What does a man who loves as I do, care for
the conventions of the sham world you and I have left so far behind. I
adore you. And you flout me."

"For shame! Would you care for me if I were a woman without delicacy or
dignity? I beg of you----"

But he had held her by the hand and would not release her.

"I adore you--and you flout me--that is all that I know. Your
indifference maddens me. Perhaps I am not as other men, and must not be
judged by other standards than my own which are sufficient for myself as
they should be sufficient for you. You know that I--I worship you--that
by staying here I have forgotten my duty to my country at a time when I
am most needed. Does that mean nothing to you? Can you be callous to a
love like mine which lives only in your happiness and hangs upon your
pleasure? I worship you, Marishka. Just one kiss, to tell me that you
care for me a little. I will be content----"

She struggled in his grasp, her fear of him lending her more strength.
Her lips--? Hugh's! Never--never--as God witnessed.

"One kiss, Marishka----"

She struggled free and struck him with her clenched fist furiously, full
in the face, and then ran to the window, as he released her, breathing
hard, trembling, but full of defiance. The suddenness of the affair and
its culmination had driven them both dumb, Marishka with terror, Goritz
with chagrin at his mistake and anger at her temerity. He touched his
face with the fingers of one hand and stared at her with eyes that
burned with black fire in the pallor of his face.

"You have struck me," he muttered. And then, with a shrug, "That was not
a love tap, Countess Strahni."

She could not speak for very terror of the consequences of the
encounter, but stood watching him narrowly, one hand upon the
window-ledge beside her.

"Well," he asked presently, "are you dumb?"

"You--you insulted me," she gasped.

"Whatever I have done, you have repaid me," he muttered.

She glanced out of the window into the black void beneath.

"I--I am not afraid to die, Herr Goritz," she said.

He caught the meaning of her glance and her poise by the window-ledge,
and their significance sobered him instantly. He drew back from her two
or three paces and leaned heavily against an oaken chair.

"Am I so repellent to you as that?" he whispered.

"My