ned the electric switch, closing her eyes
to blur the shock of the sudden deluge of light. The switch clicked, but
when she opened her eyes the room was still dark; they had cut the
connecting wires.

Thereafter her mind went mercifully blank, for what she faced was, like
birth and death, beyond comprehension. Noise at the windows roused her
from the daze at last and she found that a number of workmen were
sealing the room so that neither light nor sound could enter or escape.
The only air would be from the ventilator. And still she could not
realize what had happened, what was to happen, until the last sounds of
the workmen ceased and the deep, dread silence began; silence that had a
pulse in it--the beating of her heart.

She was standing in the middle of the room when the first shapes formed
in the black night, and terror hovered about her suddenly, touching her
as with cold fingers. She felt her way back to a corner and crouched
there against the wall, waiting, waiting. They had seized the doomed
man long before this. They must have bound and gagged him and carried
him to the palace.

A thousand types of men passed before her inward eye--thin-faced clerks,
men as pale as the belly of a dead fish; bearded monsters, gross and
thick-lipped, with thunderous laughter; laborers, stamped with patient
weariness--and all whom she saw carried the sign of the beast in their
eyes. She tried to pray, but the voice of the prince rang in her ears:
"_Le Dieu, c'est moi!_" and when she named God in her prayers, she
visualized Alexander's face, the pale, small eyes, the colorless hair,
the lofty brow, the mouth whose tight lips could not be disguised by
even the careful mustache. When a key turned in a door, she sprang to
her feet with a cry of horror.

"It is I," said the prince.

"I am dying; I cannot stay here; I will marry whom and when you will."

"Ah, my dear, you should have spoken before sunset. I warned you, and I
never change my mind. It is only for three days, remember. Also, it is
in the interest of science. Beyond that, I have quite taken a fancy to
playing God for you for three days. Do you understand?"

The even, mocking tones guided her to him. She fell at his feet and
strained his thin knees against her breast.

"Come! Be reasonable, Bertha. This is justice."

"Sire, I want no justice. For God's sake, be merciful."

She heard the shaken breath of his soundless laughter.

"Is it so? You should be grateful