her chair, hovering over her like an evil spirit.
His singular, expressive hands twitched.

"Good. I shall try to express your thoughts," he said. "Cold, formal?"

"Yes, it must be so," Olga said.

"It is finished forever?"

"Forever."

"Then write," he ordered.

She settled herself to her task. Leaning over her, Millar suggested a
sinister hypnotist bending a helpless victim to his will. He dictated,
while Olga wrote:

"I have found out what I dreaded to learn--that you love me. Your
behavior to-night convinced me. I could not place any other
interpretation on it, and my own heart answered, I cannot, dare not, see
you again. God knows I want to; I long for the happiness that I might
find with you, but I must not. Only the certainty that I am not to see
you impels me to this confession. Good-by forever."

When this was finished Olga dropped her pen and stared at the letter.
Before she could do anything, Millar had taken the sheet of paper,
blotted it, folded it and placed it within the envelope, which he
deposited in his pocket.

"What have I written?" Olga cried, bewildered.

"The last letter," Millar replied, with a smile of triumph. "I will
deliver it to Karl," he said.

Olga passed her hands wearily over her eyes, and struggled to clear her
mind of the strange, intricate network of intrigue, insinuation and
suggestion which Millar had woven there. She thought she was rid of his
sinister influence until her fingers wrote, in obedience to his will,
the letter which she would have given anything to have left unwritten.

When she looked up, Millar was putting the letter in his pocket, and his
face wore the evil, cynical smile.

"I wrote it, yet I am ashamed of what I have written," she faltered,
speaking with difficulty. "I tried to resist--yes, I did--but my hands,
my pen, followed your words. You are a very strange man."

"I will deliver the letter to Karl," Millar repeated slowly.

"You know I did not mean it; you know I did not want to write it," Olga
said.

"A woman does not always write what she wants," Millar said lightly,
"but she always wants what she writes."

"The letter was not for him; it was for me," Olga insisted.

She arose and her hand was extended imploringly, begging Millar to
return the missive to her, when Herman entered. The house had grown
still. The music was hushed, the guests were gone. Only Millar, spirit
of evil, incarnation of the devil, remained.

"This is good of y