I--Jack, I--loathe him!'

'But----' Rallywood began.

'You don't believe me? See this!' she pushed back a band of black velvet
from her arm, and held it out to him. This touched him more than all;
the slender blue-veined wrist with the marks of those cruel fingers
clasped about it moved him far more than the temptations of her delicate
beauty. With an almost involuntary desire to comfort her as one might
comfort and please a child, he bent above her hand and kissed the
bruises.

Isolde clung to him with a quick sob of relief.

'Promise me, Jack, that you will save me! When danger threatens me I
will send for you. You will come? You promise?'

But Rallywood was not in the least in love with Madame de Sagan for all
his pity. He was again master of himself, and an odd suspicion flashed
across him.

'I feel certain you are mistaken,' he repeated; 'but you have another
friend who can be of more service than I just now, Mademoiselle
Selpdorf.'

The Countess sank back into her chair.

'What do you know of Valerie?' she asked coldly.

'Very little, but----'

'Thanks! I know her better than you do. I don't choose that she should
amuse herself at my expense.

As it is, she has brought most of this trouble upon me.'

Rallywood may have been sagacious enough on some points, but on this
particular one he was a fool. He was not at all aware that Madame de
Sagan with her innocent eyes and small brain was sifting him.

'But she meant to defend you!' he exclaimed.

She laughed softly, and if a woman could have compassed the ruin of a
man by means of love and temptation, Rallywood was lost from that hour,
for the rivalry of Valerie Selpdorf added the one incentive of bitter
resolve that drives such slight-brained jealous souls to the last limit
of reckless endeavour.

'When I find myself in danger I will remind you of the firefly, and you
will come then, Jack!' she said, 'you promise?'

'When you want me, I will come--as soon as I may.'

'But that is only half a promise.'

'Yes,' he replied, 'but you know the other half is pledged already.'

She sprang up with clenched hands.

'What? To Valerie? Already?'

'No, Madame, to the Duke.'

'Ah, the Duke is well served!' she said sadly as he bowed at the door,
but she laughed to herself when it closed behind him, 'Yet you will come
when I send for you, Jack!'

CHAPTER XV.

COLENDORP.

As the night deepened the wind again rose, its many voices howled ab