In the heart
of its radiance sat a beautiful woman--Edith.

She was alone. The same defiant, scornful woman still. The cheek a
little worn, the eye a little larger in appearance, and more lustrous,
but the haughty bearing just the same. No shame upon her brow; no late
repentance bending her disdainful neck. Imperious and stately yet, and
yet regardless of herself and of all else, she sat with her dark eyes
cast down, waiting for someone.

No book, no work, no occupation of any kind but her own thought,
beguiled the tardy time. Some purpose, strong enough to fill up any
pause, possessed her. With her lips pressed together, and quivering
if for a moment she released them from her control; with her nostril
inflated; her hands clasped in one another; and her purpose swelling in
her breast; she sat, and waited.

At the sound of a key in the outer door, and a footstep in the hall, she
started up, and cried 'Who's that?' The answer was in French, and two
men came in with jingling trays, to make preparation for supper.

'Who had bade them to do so?' she asked.

'Monsieur had commanded it, when it was his pleasure to take the
apartment. Monsieur had said, when he stayed there for an hour, en
route, and left the letter for Madame--Madame had received it surely?'

'Yes.'

'A thousand pardons! The sudden apprehension that it might have been
forgotten had struck hIm;' a bald man, with a large beard from a
neighbouring restaurant; 'with despair! Monsieur had said that supper
was to be ready at that hour: also that he had forewarned Madame of the
commands he had given, in his letter. Monsieur had done the Golden Head
the honour to request that the supper should be choice and delicate.
Monsieur would find that his confidence in the Golden Head was not
misplaced.'

Edith said no more, but looked on thoughtfully while they prepared the
table for two persons, and set the wine upon it. She arose before they
had finished, and taking a lamp, passed into the bed-chamber and into
the drawing-room, where she hurriedly but narrowly examined all the
doors; particularly one in the former room that opened on the passage in
the wall. From this she took the key, and put it on the outer side. She
then came back.

The men--the second of whom was a dark, bilious subject, in a jacket,
close shaved, and with a black head of hair close cropped--had completed
their preparation of the table, and were standing looking at it. He
who had spoken befo