ow that so far as your late
jailer is concerned, your captivity is at an end. I am
leaving the boat at the next stop, and since that falls in
the night-time, I will not disturb you. Senator
Dunwody has kindly consented to act as your guardian in
my stead, and from your message to him, I judge that
in any case you would prefer his care to mine."

"My dear Countess, they are not merely idle words
when I say to you that you have won my respect and
admiration. Be on your guard, and allow me to
advise you in the interest of yourself and others to
remain--silent."
"YOUR OBLIGED AND DUTIFUL SERV'T--"

No reasons were urged, no apologies offered. Obviously, the
signature was in such circumstances better omitted.

The effect of this note, strange to say, was to fill its recipient not
with satisfaction, not even with surprise, but with sudden horror.
She felt abandoned, forsaken, not pausing to reflect that now she had
only what she had demanded of her late companion,--guardian, she now
hastily called him, and not jailer. Unconsciously she half-arose,
would have left the room. Her soul was filled with an instinctive,
unformulated dread.

As to Dunwody himself, ruthless and arrogant as was his nature, he
bore no trace of imperiousness now. The silent lips and high color
of the face before him he did not interpret to mean terror, but
contempt. In the fortunes of chance he had won her. In the game
of war she was his prisoner. Yet no ancient warrior of old, rude,
armored, beweaponed, unrelenting, ever stood more abashed before
some high-headed woman captive. He had won--what? Nothing, as he
knew very well, beyond the opportunity to fight further for her,
and under a far harder handicap, a handicap which he had foolishly
imposed on himself. This woman, seen face to face, yes, she was
beautiful, desirable, covetable. But she was not the sort of woman
he had supposed her. It was Carlisle, after all, who had won in
the game!

For two moments he debated many things in his mind. Did not women
of old sometimes relent? He asked himself over and over again the
same questions, pleaded to himself the same arguments. After all,
he reasoned, this was only a woman. Eventually she must yield to
one sort of treatment or the other. He had not reflected that,
though the ages in some ways have stood still, in others they have
gone forward. In bodily presence woman has not much changed, this
age wi