lerable jealousy of her nature combat
in her with the cruel sense of her own unlikeness with that beauty which
had subdued even herself, and with that nobler impulse of self-sacrifice
which grew side by side with the baser impulses of passion.

As she crouched down by the side of the fire all the gracious, spiritual
light that had been upon her face was gone; there was something of the
goaded, dangerous, sullen ferocity of a brave animal hard-pressed and
over-driven.

Her native generosity, the loyal disinterestedness of her love for
him, had overborne the jealousy, the wounded vanity, and the desire of
vengeance that reigned in her. Carried away by the first, she had, for
the hour, risen above the last, and allowed the nobler wish to serve and
rescue him to prevail over the baser egotism. Nothing with her was ever
premeditated; all was the offspring of the caprices of the impulse
of the immediate moment. And now the reaction followed; she was only
sensible of the burning envy that consumed her of this woman who seemed
to her more than mortal in her wonderful, fair loveliness, in her
marvelous difference from everything of their sex that the camp and the
barrack ever showed.

"And I have sent him to her when I should have fired my pistol into her
breast!" she thought, as she sat by the dying embers. And she remembered
once more the story of the Marseilles fisherwoman. She understood that
terrible vengeance under the hot, southern sun, beside the ruthless,
southern seas.

Meanwhile he, who so little knew or heeded how he occupied her heart,
passed unnoticed through the movements of the military crowds, crossed
the breadth that parted the encampment from the marquees of the generals
and their guests, gave the countersign and approached unarrested, and
so far unseen save by the sentinels, the tents of the Corona suite. The
Marshal and his male visitors were still over their banquet wines; she
had withdrawn early, on the plea of fatigue; there was no one to
notice his visit except the men on guard, who concluded that he went by
command. In the dusky light, for the moon was very young, and the flare
of the torches made the shadows black and uncertain, no one recognized
him; the few soldiers stationed about saw one of their own troopers, and
offered him no opposition, made him no question. He knew the password;
that was sufficient. The Levantine waiting near the entrance drew the
tent-folds aside and signed to him to