nded me. I am now on my way home to obey.'

"Then followed in slow, measured sentences the story of her life: married
at seventeen at her father's bidding to a man twice her age; surrounded by
a court the most dissolute in eastern Europe; forced into a social
environment that valued woman only as a chattel, and that ostracized or
defamed every wife who, reverencing her womanhood, protested against its
excesses. For five years past--ever since her marriage--her husband's
career had been one long, unending dissipation. At last, broken down by a
life he had not the moral courage to resist, he had succumbed and taken to
his bed; thence, wavering between life and death, like a burnt-out candle
flickering in its socket, he had been carried to Venice.

"'Do you wonder, now, that my faith is gone, my heart broken?'

"We were nearing Vienna; the stations were more frequent; our own carriage
began filling up. For an hour we rode side by side, silent, she gazing
fixedly from the window, I half stunned by this glimpse of a life the
pathos of which wrung my very heart. When we entered the station she
roused herself, and said to me half pleadingly:--

"'I cannot bear to think I may never see you again. To-night I must stay
in Vienna. Will you dine with me at my hotel? I go to the Metropole. And
you? Where did you intend to go?'

"'To the Metropole, also.'

"'Not when you left Venice?'

"'Yes; before I met you.'

"'There is a fate that controls us,' she said reverently. 'Come at seven.'

"When the hour arrived I sent my card to her apartment, and was ushered
into a small room with a curtain-closed door opening out into a larger
salon, through which I caught glimpses of a table spread with glass and
silver. Polaff, rigid and perpendicular, received me with a stiff, formal
recognition. I do not think he quite understood, nor altogether liked, his
mistress's chance acquaintance. In a moment she entered from a door
opposite, still in her black garments with the nun's cuffs and broad
collar. Extending her hand graciously, she said:--

"'You have slept since I left you this morning. I see it in your face. I
am so glad. And I too. I have rested all day. It was so good of you to
come.'

"There was no change in her manner; the same frank, trustful look in her
eyes, the same anxious concern about me. When dinner was announced she
placed me beside her, Polaff standing behind her chair, and the other
attendants serving.

"The talk d