th a low moan she
leaned forward and covered her face with both hands.

"Forgive me," said Von Ritz. "I _am_ your Nemesis."

Benton moved over silently and knelt beside her chair. Neither spoke,
but at last she raised her face and sat looking out at the water, then
slowly one hand came out gropingly toward the American and both of his
own closed over it. Von Ritz stood waiting.

When finally she spoke, her voice was almost childlike, full of
pleading.

"I thought," she said, "that all that was over. I had thought that
whatever is left of life belonged just to me--for my very own. I thought
I could take it away and try to mend it."

Von Ritz turned his head and his eyes traveled northward and westward,
where, somewhere beyond the horizon, lay his country.

"Galavia needs you," he said with grave simplicity. "Unless you come to
her aid there must be ruin and dismemberment. You will save your
country."

But his words appeared to convert all her crushed and pathetic misery
into anger. "It is not my country!" she replied almost fiercely. "To me
it means only--"

Von Ritz raised his hand supplicatingly. "It is my country," he said
sadly, "and--your duty. Its fate is in your hands."

The girl rose, swayed slightly, and putting out one hand for support,
stood with her black-gowned figure sketched slenderly against the white
of the cabin wall, her eyes irresolute and distressed.

"I must have time to think," she begged. "Will you leave me?" Von Ritz
bowed and retired.

She dropped exhaustedly into the chair again and for a long while sat
silent. Finally she turned toward the man who, kneeling by her side,
waited for her decision through what seemed decades of suspense, and her
hands went out gropingly again toward him.

"Dear," she said in a voice hardly more than a whisper, "whatever I
do--whatever I decide--always and always I love you!" Impulsively her
fingers clutched at his, which rested clenched on her arm-chair.

"You must go!" she said, after a long while. "With you here there is
nothing else in the world. I can see only you." With a catch in her
voice she rushed on. "You must not only go, but I must not know where
you go. I must not be able to call you back. You must give me your word
of honor."

He attempted to speak, but she tightened her hold on his hands and her
hurried utterance checked his words.

"No!" she said. "Listen! This time I decide forever. I must decide
alone. You must not only be out