rave woman, hid it
from you, but one of those spears that were flung in the fight struck
her in the side. For a while the wound went well. But two days ago it
mortified; last night she died and this morning I myself saw her buried
with honour."

"How did you see her buried, you who are not welcome among the
Northmen?" I asked.

"By my order, as her blood was high, she was laid in the palace
graveyard, Olaf."

"Did she leave me no word or token, Augusta? She swore to me that if she
died she would send to me the other half of that necklace which I wear."

"I have heard of none," said Irene, "but you will know, Olaf, that I
have other business to attend to just now than such death-bed gossip.
These things do not come to my ears."

I looked at Irene and Irene looked at me.

"Augusta," I said, "I do not believe your story. No spear wounded
Heliodore while I was near her, and when I was not near her your Greeks
were too far away for any spears to be thrown. Indeed, unless you
stabbed her secretly, she was not wounded, and I am sure that, however
much you have hated her, this you would not have dared to do for your
own life's sake. Augusta, for your own purposes you are trying to
deceive me. I will not marry you. Do your worst. You have lied to me
about the woman whom I love, and though I forgive you all the rest, this
I do not forgive. You know well that Heliodore still lives beneath the
sun."

"If so," answered the Empress, "you have looked your last upon the sun
and--her. Never again shall you behold the beauty of Heliodore. Have you
aught to say? There is still time."

"Nothing, Augusta, at present, except this. Of late I have learned to
believe in a God. I summon you to meet me before that God. There we will
argue out our case and abide His judgment. If there is no God there will
be no judgment, and I salute you, Empress, who triumph. If, as I believe
and as you say you believe, there is a God, think whom _you_ will be
called upon to salute when that God has heard the truth. Meanwhile I
repeat that Heliodore the Egyptian still lives beneath the sun."

Irene rose from the stool on which she sat and thought a moment. I gazed
through the bars of the window-place in my cell out at the night above.
A young moon was floating in the sky, and near to it hung a star. A
little passing cloud with a dented edge drifted over the star and the
lower horn of the moon. It went by, and they shone out again upon
the background o