hall follow my Star to the last."

"There, that was to Lucile. What would he write to Gabrielle--to Henri's
Gabrielle? How droll--how droll!" Again she laughed that laugh of
eternal recklessness.

It filled Shorland this time with a sense of fear. He lost sight of
everything--this strange and interesting woman, and the peculiar nature
of the events in which he was sharing, and saw only Clare Hazard's
ruined life, Luke Freeman's despair, and the fatal 26th of January, so
near at hand. He could see no way out of the labyrinth of disgrace. It
unnerved him more than anything that had ever happened to him, and he
turned bewildered towards the door. He saw that while Gabrielle lived,
a dead misfortune would be ever crouching at the threshold of Freeman's
home, that whether the woman agreed to be silent or not, the hurt to
Clare would remain the same. With an angry bitterness in his voice that
he did not try to hide he said: "There is nothing more to be done now,
Gabrielle, that I can see. But it is a crime--it is a pity!"

"A pity that he did not tell the truth on the gravestone--that he did
not follow his star to the last, monsieur? How droll! And you should see
how green the grass was on my grave! Yes, it is a pity."

But Shorland, heavy at heart, looked at her and said nothing more. He
wondered why it was that he did not loathe her. Somehow, even in her
shame, she compelled a kind of admiration and awe. She was the wreck of
splendid possibilities. A poisonous vitality possessed her, but through
it glowed a daring and a candour that belonged to her before she became
wicked, and that now half redeemed her in the eyes of this man, who knew
the worst of her. Even in her sin she was loyal to the scoundrel for
whom she had sacrificed two lives, her own and another's. Her brow might
flush with shame of the mad deed that turned her life awry, and of the
degradation of her present surroundings; but her eyes looked straight
into those of Shorland without wavering, with the pride of strength if
not of goodness.

"Yes, there is one thing more," she said. "Give me that portrait to
keep--until the 25th. Then you may take it--from the woman in the
Morgue."

Shorland thought for a moment. She had spoken just now without sneering,
without bravado, without hardness. He felt that behind this woman's
outward cruelty and varying moods there was something working that
perhaps might be trusted, something in Luke's interest. He was certain