sea, my love brought into direct contact with the situation: all
that was enough to make one shudder - not at the chance, but at the

design.
For it was my love that was called upon to act here, and nothing

else. And love which elevates us above all safeguards, above
restraining principles, above all littlenesses of self-possession,

yet keeps its feet always firmly on earth, remains marvellously
practical in its suggestions.

I discovered that however much I had imagined I had given up Rita,
that whatever agonies I had gone through, my hope of her had never

been lost. Plucked out, stamped down, torn to shreds, it had
remained with me secret, intact, invincible. Before the danger of

the situation it sprang, full of life, up in arms - the undying
child of immortal love. What incited me was independent of honour

and compassion; it was the prompting of a love supreme, practical,
remorseless in its aim; it was the practical thought that no woman

need be counted as lost for ever, unless she be dead!
This excluded for the moment all considerations of ways and means

and risks and difficulties. Its tremendousintensity robbed it of
all direction and left me adrift in the big black-and-white hall as

on a silent sea. It was not, properlyspeaking, irresolution. It
was merely hesitation as to the next immediate step, and that step

even of no great importance: hesitation merely as to the best way
I could spend the rest of the night. I didn't think further

forward for many reasons, more or less optimistic, but mainly
because I have no homicidal vein in my composition. The

disposition to gloat over homicide was in that miserable creature
in the studio, the potential Jacobin; in that confounded buyer of

agricultural produce, the punctualemploye of Hernandez Brothers,
the jealouswretch with an obscene tongue and an imagination of the

same kind to drive him mad. I thought of him without pity but also
without contempt. I reflected that there were no means of sending

a warning to Dona Rita in Tolosa; for of course no postal
communication existed with the Headquarters. And moreover what

would a warning be worth in this particular case, supposing it
would reach her, that she would believe it, and that she would know

what to do? How could I communicate to another that certitude
which was in my mind, the more absolute because without proofs that

one could produce?
The last expression of Rose's distress rang again in my ears:

"Madame has no friends. Not one!" and I saw Dona Rita's complete
loneliness beset by all sorts of insincerities, surrounded by

pitfalls; her greatest dangers within herself, in her generosity,
in her fears, in her courage, too. What I had to do first of all

was to stop that wretch at all costs. I became aware of a great
mistrust of Therese. I didn't want her to find me in the hall, but

I was reluctant to go upstairs to my rooms from an unreasonable
feeling that there I would be too much out of the way; not

sufficiently on the spot. There was the alternative of a live-long
night of watching outside, before the dark front of the house. It

was a most distastefulprospect. And then it occurred to me that
Blunt's former room would be an extremely good place to keep a

watch from. I knew that room. When Henry Allegre gave the house
to Rita in the early days (long before he made his will) he had

planned a complete renovation and this room had been meant for the
drawing-room. Furniture had been made for it specially,

upholstered in beautiful ribbed stuff, made to order, of dull gold
colour with a pale blue tracery of arabesques and oval medallions

enclosing Rita's monogram, repeated on the backs of chairs and
sofas, and on the heavy curtains reaching from ceiling to floor.

To the same time belonged the ebony and bronze doors, the silver
statuette at the foot of the stairs, the forged iron balustrade

reproducing right up the marblestaircase Rita's decorative
monogram in its complicated design. Afterwards the work was

stopped and the house had fallen into disrepair. When Rita devoted
it to the Carlist cause a bed was put into that drawing-room, just

simply the bed. The room next to that yellow salon had been in
Allegre's young days fitted as a fencing-room containing also a

bath, and a complicatedsystem of all sorts of shower and jet
arrangements, then quite up to date. That room was very large,

lighted from the top, and one wall of it was covered by trophies of
arms of all sorts, a choice collection of cold steel disposed on a

background of Indian mats and rugs Blunt used it as a dressing-
room. It communicated by a small door with the studio.

I had only to extend my hand and make one step to reach the
magnificent bronze handle of the ebony door, and if I didn't want

to be caught by Therese there was no time to lose. I made the step
and extended the hand, thinking that it would be just like my luck

to find the door locked. But the door came open to my push. In
contrast to the dark hall the room was most unexpectedly" target="_blank" title="ad.意外地；突然地">unexpectedly dazzling

to my eyes, as if illuminated a giorno for a reception. No voice
came from it, but nothing could have stopped me now. As I turned

round to shut the door behind me noiselessly I caught sight of a
woman's dress on a chair, of other articles of apparel scattered

about. The mahogany bed with a piece of light silk which Therese
found somewhere and used for a counterpane was a magnificent

combination of white and crimson between the gleaming surfaces of
dark wood; and the whole room had an air of splendour with marble

consoles, gilt carvings, long mirrors and a sumptuous Venetian
lustre depending from the ceiling: a darkling mass of icy pendants

catching a spark here and there from the candles of an eight-
branched candelabra standing on a little table near the head of a

sofa which had been dragged round to face the fireplace. The
faintest possible whiff of a familiar perfume made my head swim

with its suggestion.
I grabbed the back of the nearest piece of furniture and the

splendour of marbles and mirrors, of cut crystals and carvings,
swung before my eyes in the golden mist of walls and draperies

round an extremelyconspicuous pair of black stockings thrown over
a music stool which remained motionless. The silence was profound.

It was like being in an enchanted place. Suddenly a voice began to
speak, clear, detached, infinitely" target="_blank" title="ad.无限地；无穷地">infinitelytouching in its calm weariness.

"Haven't you tormented me enough to-day?" it said. . . . My head
was steady now but my heart began to beat violently. I listened to

the end without moving, "Can't you make up your mind to leave me
alone for to-night?" It pleaded with an accent of charitable

scorn.
The penetrating quality of these tones which I had not heard for so

many, many days made my eyes run full of tears. I guessed easily
that the appeal was addressed to the atrocious Therese. The

speaker was concealed from me by the high back of the sofa, but her
apprehension was perfectly justified. For was it not I who had

turned back Therese the pious, the insatiable, coming downstairs in
her nightgown to torment her sister some more? Mere surprise at

Dona Rita's presence in the house was enough to paralyze me; but I
was also overcome by an enormous sense of relief, by the assurance

of security for her and for myself. I didn't even ask myself how
she came there. It was enough for me that she was not in Tolosa.

I could have smiled at the thought that all I had to do now was to
hasten the departure of that abominablelunatic - for Tolosa: an

easy task, almost no task at all. Yes, I would have smiled, had
not I felt outraged by the presence of Senor Ortega under the same

roof with Dona Rita. The mere fact was repugnant to me, morally
revolting; so that I should have liked to rush at him and throw him

out into the street. But that was not to be done for various
reasons. One of them was pity. I was suddenly at peace with all

mankind, with all nature. I felt as if I couldn't hurt a fly. The
intensity of my emotion sealed my lips. With a fearful joy tugging

at my heart I moved round the head of the couch without a word.
In the wide fireplace on a pile of white ashes the logs had a deep

crimson glow; and turned towards them Dona Rita reclined on her
side enveloped in the skins of wild beasts like a charming and

savage young chieftain before a camp fire. She never even raised
her eyes, giving me the opportunity to contemplate mutely that

adolescent, delicatelymasculine head, so mysteriouslyfeminine in
the power of instant seduction, so infinitely" target="_blank" title="ad.无限地；无穷地">infinitely suave in its firm

design, almost childlike in the freshness of detail: altogether
ravishing in the inspired strength of the modelling. That precious

head reposed in the palm of her hand; the face was slightly flushed
(with anger perhaps). She kept her eyes obstinately fixed on the