l the blood racing back to her
heart. She knew it now beyond a doubt. She had known it before in her
secret soul. It was the report of a rifle in the palace square.

As she stood irresolute, listening with straining nerves, another sound
began to grow out of the night, gathering strength with every instant, a
long, fierce roar that resembled nothing that she had ever heard, yet
which she knew instinctively for what it was--the raging tumult of an
angry crowd. It was like the yelling of a thousand demons.

Suddenly it swelled to an absolute pandemonium of sound, and she shrank
appalled. The sudden, paralysing conviction flashed upon her that the
palace had been deserted by its guards and was in the hands of
murderers. She seemed to hear them swarming everywhere, unopposed, yet
lusting for blood, while she, a defenceless woman, stood cowering
against a door.

Sheer physical horror seized upon her. The mercy of the mob! The mercy
of the mob! The words ran red-hot in her brain. She knew well what she
might expect from them. They would tear her limb from limb.

She could not face it. She must escape. Even now surely she could
escape. Back in her room, only the length of the corridor away, was
deliverance. Surely she could reach it in time! Like a hunted creature
she gathered herself together, and, turning, fled along the way she had
come.

She rushed at length, panting, into her room, and, without a pause or
glance around, fled into the bedroom beyond. It was here, it was here
that her deliverance lay, safe hidden in a secret drawer.

The place was in darkness save for the light that streamed after her
through the open door. Shaking in every limb, near to fainting, she
groped her way across, found--almost fell against--her little
writing-table, and sank upon her knees before it--for the moment too
spent to move.

But a slight sound that seemed to come from near at hand aroused her.
She started up in a fresh panic, pulled out a drawer, that fell with a
crash from her trembling hands, and began to feel behind for a secret
spring. Oh, she had been a fool, a fool to hide it so securely! She
would never find it in the darkness.

Nevertheless, groping, her quivering fingers soon discovered that which
they sought. The secret slide opened and she felt for what lay beyond. A
moment later she was clasping tightly a little silver flask.

And then, with deliverance actually within her hold, she paused.
Kneeling there in the d