so
to-night, please--please don't speak to me--leave me alone."

And Tristram was silenced. Whatever it was that soon she must explain,
he could not torture her to-night, and, in spite of his anger and
suspicions and pain, it hurt him to see her, when the lights flashed in
upon them, huddled up in the corner--her eyes like a wounded deer's.

"Zara!" he said at last--quite gently, "what is this, awful shadow that
is hanging over you?--If you will only tell me--" But at that moment
they arrived at the door, which was immediately opened, and she walked
in and then to the lift without answering, and entering, closed the
door. For what could she say?

She could bear things no longer. Tristram evidently saw she had some
secret trouble, she would get her uncle to release her from her promise,
as far as her husband was concerned at least,--she hated mysteries, and
if it had annoyed him for her to be out late she would tell him the
truth--and about Mirko, and everything.

Evidently he had been very much annoyed at that, but this was the first
time he had even suggested he had noticed she was troubled about
anything, except that day in the garden at Wrayth. Her motives were so
perfectly innocent that not the faintest idea even yet dawned upon her
that anything she had ever done could even look suspicious. Tristram
was angry with her because she was late, and had insinuated something
out of jealousy; men were always jealous, she knew, even if they were
perfectly indifferent to a woman. What really troubled her terribly
to-night Was the telegram she found in her room. She had told the maid
to put it there when it came. It was from Mimo, saying Mirko was
feverish again--really ill, he feared, this time.

So poor Zara spent a night of anguish and prayer, little knowing what
the morrow was to bring.

And Tristram went out again to the Turf, and tried to divert his mind
away from his troubles. There was no use in speculating any further, he
must wait for an explanation which he would not consent to put off
beyond the next morning.

So at last the day of a pitiful tragedy dawned.

Zara got up and dressed early. She must be ready to go out to try and
see Mimo, the moment she could slip away after breakfast, so she came
down with her hat on: she wanted to speak to her uncle alone, and
Tristram, she thought, would not be there so early--only nine o'clock.

"This is energetic, my niece!" Francis Markrute said, but she hardly
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