eps, seemed
half to know the swinging of the draperies, even as I stepped back in
obedience to her gesture. Her wit was quick as ever.

"My lord," she said, "pray close yonder window. The draft is bad, and,
moreover, we should have secrecy." He obeyed her, and she led him still
further from the thought of investigating his surroundings.

"Now, my lord," she said, "_take back_ what you have just said!"

"Under penalty?" he sneered.

"Of your life, yes."

"So!" he grunted admiringly; "well, now, I like fire in a woman, even a
deceiving light-o'-love like you!"

"Monsieur!" her voice cried again; and once more it restrained me in my
hiding.

"You devil!" he resumed, sneering now in all his ugliness of wine and
rage and disappointment. "What were _you?_ Mistress of the prince of
France! Toy of a score of nobles! Slave of that infamous rake, your
husband! Much you've got in your life to make you uppish now with me!"

"My lord," she said evenly, "retract that. If you do not, you shall not
leave this place alive."

In some way she mastered him, even in his ugly mood.

"Well, well," he growled, "I admit we don't get on very well in our
little love affair; but I swear you drive me out of my mind. I'll never
find another woman in the world like you. It's Sir Richard Pakenham asks
you to begin a new future with himself."

"We begin no future, my lord."

"What do you mean? Have you lied to me? Do you mean to break your
word--your promise?"

"It is within the hour that I have learned what the truth is."

"God damn my soul!" I heard him curse, growling.

"Yes, my lord," she answered, "God will damn your soul in so far as it
is that of a brute and not that of a gentleman or a statesman."

I heard him drop into a chair. "This from one of your sort!" he half
whimpered.

"Stop, now!" she cried. "Not one word more of that! I say within the
hour I have learned what is the truth. I am Helena von Ritz, thief on
the cross, and at last clean!"

"God A'might, Madam! How pious!" he sneered. "Something's behind all
this. I know your record. What woman of the court of Austria or France
comes out with _morals?_ We used you here because you had none. And now,
when it comes to the settlement between you and me, you talk like a nun.
As though a trifle from virtue such as yours would be missed!"

"Ah, my God!" I heard her murmur. Then again she called to me, as he
thought to himself; so that all was as it had been, for the time.