!'

She glanced at Rallywood, secure in his approval, but he had turned to
Valerie, who was sitting in a low wooden chair by the stove with her
back to the room.

'It was magnificent, Mademoiselle!' he exclaimed.

Valerie shivered.

'There was nothing at all magnificent about it,' she said coldly.
'Self-preservation drives one to do what one can; it is only by chance
that one happens to do the right thing.'

Isolde shrugged her shoulders and made a little grimace at Rallywood.

'Do not heed her, Jack. People are always very pleased with themselves
for doing what other people call magnificent. Valerie is cross. Take
this chair by me; I have a very serious quarrel with you.'

All the terror and peril of that dreadful drive had passed from Madame
de Sagan's facile mind. The little rivalries and coquetries of everyday
life occupied her as fully as if her lot contained no troublous outlook.
In this conjunction vanity will often do for a woman what work does for
a man. As for Isolde, the small promptings of a wounded vanity at once
absorbed her.

Very unwillingly Rallywood obeyed. Between those narrow walls one was
within hand-reach of everything in the room, so that although he was
beside the Countess he was not a yard from Mademoiselle Selpdorf.

'So you would not come to me last night?' began Isolde abruptly. 'You
cannot be made to understand that we Maasauns hold human life of very
little account. It is stupid of you, Jack, but you will be forced to
believe it now. Do you know that the driver of the sleigh----'

The attempt at assassination was horrible enough in itself, but from her
lips wearing their strange innocent smile he felt he could not endure
the story.

'I have heard of it,' he interposed hastily; 'the Lieutenant told me.
But----'

Isolde leant upon her elbow to look into his face.

'What! You don't believe even now that Simon is trying to rid himself of
me? Valerie, speak! You too refused to believe me last night. What do
you say now?'

'It may have been an accident,' replied Valerie with a tired movement.

'Absurd! But whatever you choose to say, I will not go back to the
Castle! Revonde is perhaps safe----'

'My father is there, and you will be safe,' said Valerie in a tone of
quiet certainty.

Isolde laughed scornfully. 'I don't know that; for after all Sagan is
the most powerful man in the state!' she cried, with that perverse pride
in her husband that his daring personality seemed to