who passed me by as one beneath contempt! And always,
clear before my eyes, in my ears, above all other sights and sounds, I
saw Anne's face, heard her voice. Now she stood before me as I had first
known her,--a radiant, queenly vision; a girl whose laughing eyes showed
never a care in the world, or a thought beyond the passing moment. Her
hands were full of flowers, red flowers, red as blood. Why, it was
blood; it was staining her fingers, dripping from them! Yet the man
didn't see it; that man with the dark eager face, who was standing
beside her, who took a spray of the flowers from her hand. What a fool
this Cassavetti is not to know that she is "_La Mort!_"

Now she is changed; she wears a black gown, and the red flowers have
vanished; but she is lovelier, more queenly than ever, as she looks at
me with wide, pathetic eyes, and says, "I have deceived you!"

Again she stands, with hands outstretched, and cries, "The end is in
sight; thank God for all His mercies;" and her face is as that of an
angel in Heaven.

But always there is a barrier between her and me; a barrier impalpable
yet unpassable. I try to surmount it, but I am beaten back every time.
Now it is Cassavetti who confronts me; again, and yet again, it is
Loris, with his stern white face, his inscrutable blue eyes. He is on
horseback; he rides straight at me, and he bears something in his arms.

* * * * *

I struggled up and looked around me. I knew the place well enough, the
long narrow room that had once been the _salle a manger_ in the
Vassilitzi's Warsaw house, but that, ever since I had known it, had been
the principal ward in the amateur hospital instituted by Anne. A squalid
ward enough, for the beds were made up on the floor, anyhow, and every
bit of space was filled, leaving just a narrow track for the attendants
to pass up and down.

Along that track came a big figure that I recognized at once as Mishka,
walking with clumsy caution.

"You are better? That is well," he said in a gruff undertone.

"How did I get here?" I demanded.

"Yossof brought you; he found you walking about the streets, raving mad.
It is a marvel that you were not shot down."

Then I remembered something at least of what had passed.

"How long since?" I stammered, putting my hand up to my bandaged head.

"Two days."

"And--?"

"I will answer no questions," he growled in his surliest fashion. "I
will send you food and you are to