looked, and ripped out a fiery exclamation. The smooth flesh was
scarred and torn across in several places, and was still bleeding. The
mark of Sobrenski's grip on her wrist had turned from crimson to a dull
discoloured hue.

"It doesn't hurt so very much," she said. "Only I can't bear the sight
of blood. All Jewish people are like that. I can't help it. It makes
me feel queer all over."

She turned her head aside with a shudder. Emile muttered another
expletive, adding:

"Then if you feel like that, don't look."

He told her again to sit down, tore her handkerchief into strips,
soaked them in water from a carafe, and bandaged up the wounds in a
rough but effectual fashion.

She said nothing during the process, but kept her head still turned
away so that he could not see her face.

"Voila!" said Emile. "That will be all right to-morrow. What did they
do to you?"

"I cut my fingers on the window sill when they let me down. There was
a piece of iron or a nail or something. I don't remember. It didn't
hurt at the time."

"H'm!" commented Emile. "But this?" he touched her wrist lightly. "It
looks like--"

"That? Oh, Sobrenski did that. He--"

"Well?" said Emile. He waited but there came no answer, so he
continued the interrogation. "You didn't make a scene, Fatalite?"

He heard her flinch and draw in her breath as she covered her face with
her free hand. Her low painful sobbing reminded him of the
inarticulate moaning of an animal.

Even in her grief, her abandonment, she was unlike all other women.
Emile stood beside her in watchful silence, and neither attempted to
interfere nor to console her. He was wise enough to know that to a
highly strung nature like hers too much self-repression might be
dangerous, and he was humane enough to be glad that she had the relief
of tears.

At length he said quietly, "I didn't know you could cry, Fatalite. I
didn't know you were human enough for that."

She still fought desperately for composure, thrusting a fold of the
torn _velo_ between her teeth. The naked light shone on her bent head,
and on her glittering rope of hair.

A strange impulse suddenly moved Emile to finger a loose strand with a
touch that had in it something of a caress.

Gamin she had been, _equestrienne_, heroine, and now she was only a
sorrowful Dolores.

At last words came.

She stood up and faced him, shaking back her hair.

"Emile! Emile! I must give it up. I ca