e talked about it--long ago. But
I have not put you to the test, and I--I often wonder if our friendship
still remains alive.'

'I am as I always was,' he parried.

'I wonder if that is true?' She raised her drooping face again. 'I don't
know how to believe you. Why will you keep up this pretence of--of
reserve between us? You never tell me your troubles, and I suppose you
have them, like the rest of us. We should be quite old friends now, and
yet you are always so'--she hesitated for a word--'courteous. Are you
ever angry, for example?'

'Very often.'

'But not with me, and I have given you cause many a time. If you would
be angry with me even once, Jack, causelessly angry, then I should know
I had a friend to whom I could go if I were in trouble--in such trouble
as I am to-night!'

'If there is anything I can do for you----'

The quiet tone annoyed her. She rose quickly.

'If--if--if! Any man could help me who--cared.'

'I do care.'

'I wonder,' she said wistfully, 'how much you mean of what you say. I
have no standard to judge you by, because you are not quite like other
men. But I owe you my life, and I sometimes think it gives me a claim on
you.'

'I can never pretend you owe me anything: you were quite safe; no
accident could have happened. You are far too good a horsewoman, though
you were nervous for the moment.' He spoke with a careless
affectionateness, for the young Countess in her helpless beauty appealed
to him.

'Look at me!' she said tragically. 'Do I seem hateful?'

'You are a young queen,' he paused, and added, 'a young queen--seen in a
dream! You are too ethereal to be of common earth.'

'I am of common earth like any other woman,' she answered with a forlorn
little smile; 'I can be afraid and--I can love!'

'Afraid? In your own Castle, among your own people?'

'Yes, Jack. Don't think I am silly! It is quite true. You say you have
not changed, that you are still my friend. You are my only one then! I
must look to you for protection; I have no one else in the whole world.'
She was very near him, her little cold hand had caught his in her
vehemence; she looked apprehensively behind her, and then spoke low in
his ear. 'I am afraid of my husband. He wishes to be rid of me--I have
seen it in his eyes. Sagan will kill me! Do you remember the night of
the ball, when I gave you the firefly? Have you kept it, I wonder? I
said mine would be a short life. It is true. Sagan is tired of me, and