s face
into view. It was Captain Kerissen.

Some one was stirring in the anteroom, and Arlee darted to the left
of the throne-chair and through the door there which stood ajar.
She was in a dim salon, like the one that she had left, but smaller,
and across from her was another door. She flew toward it, wild with
the hope of escape, and it opened before her eager hands.

From the shadows of the room it disclosed came a figure with a quick
cry. So suddenly it came, so tumultuously it threw itself toward her
that Arlee had a startled vision of bare arms, glittering with
jeweled bands, arrested outstretched before her as the low gladness
of the cry broke in an angry guttural. Slowly the arms dropped in a
gesture of despair. She saw a face, distorted, passionate, grow
haggard beneath its paint in the reversal of hope.

"Madame!" stammered Arlee to that strange figure of her hostess.
"Madame--Oh, pardon me," she cried, snatching at her French, "but
tell me how I can go away from here. Tell me----"

"_C'est toi--va-t-en!_" the woman answered in a voice of smothered
fury. She made a menacing gesture toward the door. "_Va-t-en_."
Suddenly her voice rose in a passion of angry phrases that were
indistinguishable to the girl, and then she broke off as suddenly
and flung herself down upon a couch. From behind her the old woman
came shuffling forth and put a hand on Arlee's arm, and Arlee felt
the muscles of that hand as strong and rigid as a man's. Utterly
confused and bewildered, the girl suffered herself to be led back
through the rooms to the foot of her stairs.

"Mariayah!" screamed the old woman, and after a moment the voice of
waiting-maid answered from above, and then as Arlee dumbly ascended
the stairs, the voice of the old woman rose with her in shrill
admonition.

It was the voice of a jailer, thought the white-lipped girl, and
that little, dark-skinned maid who waited upon her so eagerly, with
such sidelong glances of strange interest, was the tool of a jailer.
And though the turning of the key in her own hand gave her a
momentary sense of refuge from them, it was but a false illusion of
the moment. There was neither refuge nor safety here. She was being
deceived ...

The quarantine was lifted.

How else could the Captain be cantering down the street? He did
not look like a man escaping.... Perhaps he had bribed the
doorkeeper--that which he had declared impossible for Arlee....
But certainly he was deceiving