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Bouverie looked on at this scene. Her eyes were bright with excitement. I noticed that she kept gazing at Madame Sara as though fascinated. Presently she turned to me.

"Is she not wonderful?" she exclaimed. "Think of her adding Persian to her many accomplishments. She is so wonderfully brilliant—she makes everything go well. There certainly is no one like her."

"No one more dangerous," I could not help whispering.

Violet shrugged her pretty shoulders.

"There never was anyone more obstinate and prejudiced than you can be when you like, Dixon," she answered. "Ah, there is Madame calling me. She and I mean to have a cosy hour in my boudoir before dinner." She flew from my side, and as I stood in the hall I saw the young hostess and Madame Sara going slowly up the wide stairs side by side. I thought how well Violet looked, and began to hope that her trouble was at an end—that the money I had brought her had done what she hoped it would, and that Madame for the time was innocuous.

But I was destined to be quickly undeceived. About an hour later I was standing in one of the corridors when Violet Bouverie ran past me. She pulled herself up the next instant and, turning, came up to me on tip-toe. Her face was so changed that I should scarcely have recognised it.

"The worst has happened," she said, in a whisper.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Hubert—I did think I could save him. Oh, I am nearly mad."

"Madame has brought you bad tidings?"

"The worst. What am I to do? I must keep up appearances to-night. Don't take
"'Heaven help me!' she sobbed." any notice of me: I will tell you to-morrow. But Heaven help me! Heaven help me!" she sobbed.

I watched her as she walked quickly down the corridor. Her handkerchief was pressed to her face; tears were streaming from her eyes. Hatred even stronger than I had ever before experienced filled me with regard to Madame Sara. My first impulse was to beard the lioness in her den, to demand an