ghteousness is as guilty--just exactly as guilty--as he who breaks
another. Isn't the first commandment as binding as the other nine? And
how many of us do not break that every day we live?"

And there was the whole creed of Opal Ledoux.

But as intimate as she and the Boy had become, they yet knew
comparatively little of each other's lives.

Opal guessed that the Boy was of rank, and bound to some definite course
of action for political reasons. This much she had gained from odds and
ends of conversation. But beyond that, she had no idea who he was, nor
whence he came. She would not have been a woman had she not been
curious--and as I have said before, Opal Ledoux was, every inch of her
five feet, a woman--but she never allowed herself to wax inquisitive.

As for the Boy, he knew there was some evil hovering with threatening
wings over the sunshine of the girl's young life--some shadow she tried
to forget, but could not put aside--and he grew to associate this shadow
with the continued presence of the French Count, and his intimate air of
authority. Paul knew not why he should thus connect these two, but
nevertheless the impression grew that in some way de Roannes exercised a
sinister influence over the life of the girl he loved.

He hated the Count. He resented every look that those dissolute eyes
flashed at the girl, and he noticed many. He saw Opal wince sometimes,
and then turn pale. Yet she did not resent the offense.

But Paul did.

"Such a look from a man like that is the grossest insult to any woman,"
he thought, writhing in secret rage. "How can she permit it? If she were
my--my _sister_, I'd shoot him if he once dared to turn his damned eyes
in her direction!"

And thus matters stood throughout the brief voyage. Paul and Opal,
though conscious of the double barrier between them, tried to forget its
existence for the moment, and, at intervals, succeeded admirably.

For were they not in the spring-time of youth, and in love?

And Paul Zalenska talked to this girl as he had never talked to anyone
before--not even Paul Verdayne!

She brought out the latent best in him. She developed in him a quickness
of perception, a depth of thought and emotion, a facility of speech
which he had never known. She stimulated every faculty, and gave him new
incentive--a new and firmer resolve to aspire and fight for all that he
held dear.

"I always feel," he said to Opal, once, "as though my soul stood always
at att