HIPPODROME

by

RACHEL HAYWARD

George H. Doran CompanyNew YorkCopyright, 1913, By George H. Doran Company

TO

EDYTH AND ARTHUR APPLIN

WITH LOVE AND HOMAGE. 

 "Car vois-tu chaque jour je t'aime davantage, Aujourd'hui plus qu'hier, et bien moins que demain. " (_Rosemonde Rostand_)

THE HIPPODROME

CHAPTER I

 "Aujourd'hui le primtetemps, Ninon, demain l'hiver. Quoi! tu nas pas l'étoile, est tu vas sur la mer!" DE MUSSET. 

Count Emile Poleski was obliged to be at the Barcelona Station at fiveo'clock in the afternoon one hot Friday in May. His business, havingto do with that which was known to himself and his associates as "theCause, " necessitated careful attention, and required the performance ofcertain manoeuvres in such a way that they should be unobserved by thevarious detectives to whom he was an object of interest. 

He looked round, scowling, till he found the man he wanted, and who wasto all outward appearances the driver of one of the row of _fiacres_that waited outside the station. Cigarettes were exchanged, and a tinyslip of paper passed imperceptibly from hand to hand, then he turnedostensibly to watch the incoming train from Port-Bou. As he was on theplatform it would be better to look as if he had come to meet someone, and as he had nothing particular to do just then it would make adistraction to watch the various types of humanity arriving at thiscontinental Buenos Ayres, the city of romance, anarchy, commerce andvaried vices. 

Emile Poleski called it _l'entresol de l'enfer_, and certainly he wasnot there by his own choice. It was the centre of intrigue, and tointrigue his life, intellect, and the little money he had left from hisPolish estates, were devoted. To him life meant "The Cause, " and thatexigeant mistress left little room for other and more naturalaffections. 

In his career women did not count, at least they did not count aswomen. If they had money to spend, or brains and energies that couldbe utilised, that was a different matter. He had a trick of studyingpeople as one studies natural history through a microscope. 

It was all very interesting, but when one had done with the specimensone threw them away and looked about for fresh material. 

The train came in, slackened speed and stopped, and its contentsresolved themselves into little groups of people all hunting with moreor less excitement for their luggage, and porters to convey the same tocabs. 

The figure of a girl who had just alighted and was standing alone, caught and held his roving eyes. The pose of her abnormally slim bodyhad all the grace of a figure on a Grecian vase in its clean curves andeasy balance. 

Her head was beautifully set upon a long throat, and her feet wereconspicuously slender and delicate in their high French boots ofchampagne-coloured kid. Her face, which as far as he could see was ofa startling pallor, was obscured by a white lace veil tied looselyround her Panama hat, and left to fall down her back in floating ends;and she wore a rather crumpled, cream-coloured dress. 

She stood, looking round, as if uncertain how to act, evidently inexpectation of someone to meet her. No one appeared and she moved offin search of a porter. Emile followed at a reasonable distance. Bookshe found desperately dull, but humanity in any shape or form wasattractive to him, and the girl's appearance appealed to a deeplyembedded love of the exotic and mysterious. 

He watched with cynical amusement as she tried to explain her wishes inFrench to a porter, who spoke only the dialect of Catalonia. Her voicefinally decided Emile on his line of conduct. Low-pitched it was, withsubtle inflections, and with a hoarseness in the lower notes such asone hears in the voices of Jewish women. 

A woman, whose vocal notes were of that enchanting _timbre_, was likelyto prove interesting. 

He advanced a few steps nearer, saying in French, "I speak thelanguage. Can I be of any use?"

The girl turned, giving him a comprehensive glance, and bowed slightlyin acknowledgment. 

"Many thanks, _Monsieur_! I know scarcely any Spanish. Perhaps youwould tell me where one could get lodgings. It seems rather hopelessfor this man and myself to continue arguing in different languages, soif you would not mind--"

When they were both in the _fiacre_ she did not speak, but leaned back, her hands in her lap, her feet crossed, looking straight in front ofher with hazel-green eyes, expressionless as those of the Sphinx. Count Poleski congratulated himself in silence over his discovery. Here was a woman so unique that she asked no questions, did notvolunteer after the manner of most women a flood of volubleinformation, apparently took everything for granted, and was in no wayembarrassed by himself or his company. 

In some respects she appeared a young girl, but her composure wascertainly not youthful. 

"So you're out from England, " he said at last. 

"From Paris, " she answered him serenely. "I'm Arithelli of theHippodrome. " There was a girlish pride in her accents, and she lookedat him sideways to observe the effect of her announcement. 

"_Ma foi_! So it's that, is it? Then I've heard something about you. I know the Manager pretty well. He said you were _un peu bizarre_. "

"_Peut être plus qu'un peu_, " Arithelli retorted quickly. "I see youthink he's right. "

Arrived at the lodgings she sat still, waiting in the cab with the sameapparent indifference while Emile wrangled with the landlady. Atlength he came back to her: "You had better try these for a week, " hesaid. "They're forty _pesetas_. She will want the rent in advance asyou have no recommendation. " For the first time Arithelli seemeddisturbed. 

"I'm afraid I can't pay it. I'm to have five pounds a week at theHippodrome, but of course I can't ask for that in advance. I had asecond-class ticket out here, and now I've only got four-and-sixpenceleft. "

She held out a small blue satin bag, displaying a few coins. "PerhapsI'd better go and explain to the Manager. " Emile shrugged hisshoulders. Obviously the girl was very young. 

"On the whole I think you'd better not, " he said. "You know nothingabout either myself or the Manager, and it seems you've got to trustone of us so it may as well be me. "

When he had arranged matters he departed, saying casually, "I'll comein again to-night about nine o'clock to see how you are getting on. Don't do anything insane, such as wandering about the streets, becauseyou feel dull. It won't hurt you to put up with the dulness for a bit. You'll have plenty of excitement if you're going to live in Barcelona. "

"_Tiens_!" said Arithelli to herself. "What manners and what dirtynails! _C'est un homme épouvantable_, but very useful. But for him Ishould have been prancing round this place all night, looking forrooms. "

She dragged her trunk towards her, and proceeded to unpack thecollection of gaudy dresses that she had bought with so much pride atthe _Bon Marché_ in Paris, and which were all in the worst possibletaste. 

Perhaps she had been impelled to a choice of lively colours as beingsymbolical in their brightness of the new life on which she was aboutto embark. There was a green cloth rendered still more hideous bybeing inlet with medallions of pink silk, a cornflower blue with muchsilver braid already becoming tarnished in the few times it had beenworn, and a mauve and orange adorned with flamboyant Eastern embroidery. 

When she had tumbled them all out they showed a vivid patch ofill-assorted tints. Arithelli shivered as she sat back on her heels onthe floor, and looked round the sordid room. The excitement of herarrival had worn off, and the element of depression reigned supreme inher mind. Certainly the apartment, which was supposed to be abed-sitting-room, but which was merely a bedroom, was not enlivening tocontemplate. No carpet, dirty boards, a large four-poster bed canopiedwith faded draperies against the wall facing the window. There was afeeble attempt at a washstand in a small alcove on the left, furnishedwith the usual doll's house crockery affected on the Continent, --nowardrobe and no dressing table. 

It all looked hopeless, she told herself disgustedly. Surely therewere better rooms to be found in Barcelona for forty _pesetas_ a week!Either lodgings must be very dear or else Emile Poleski had meant totake a large commission for his trouble in finding them!

She was stiff and tired after the long journey and want of proper food, and every trifle took upon itself huge dimensions. She was daintilyfastidious as to cleanliness, and everything seemed to her filthybeyond belief. The universal squalor customary in Spanish life hadcome as an unpleasant shock. 

When she started from Paris she had conjured visions of a triumphalentry into her new career. Now she felt rather frightened anddesperately lonely, and the horrible room appeared like a bad omen forthe future. But, she reflected, after all, things might have beenworse. She had found one friend already. Certainly he haddisagreeable manners, especially after the artificial and invariablepoliteness of the Frenchmen she had met while travelling, but at leasthe promised to be useful. She picked herself up off the floor andbegan to consider the disposal of her garments. Three or four woodenpegs, the only accommodation to be seen, were obviously not sufficientto hold all her clothes. 

Presently there was an interlude, provided by the advent of thelandlady. Her dishevelment accorded well with the general look of thehouse; her slippers clicked on the carpetless boards at every shufflingstep, and she carried a half-cold, slopped-over cup of coffee. ToArithelli's relief the woman was mistress of a limited amount of Frenchpatois, and in answer to a demand for a wardrobe of some kind, said shewould send up her son. He was a carpenter and would doubtless arrangesomething. She gave a curious glance at the girl's witch-like beauty, a mixture of suspicion and barely-admitted pity in her thoughts. 

As to Emile's share in the drama she had naturally formed conclusions. After a respectable interval her son arrived, and having deliveredhimself of a remark in Spanish and being answered in French, proceededto hammer a row of enormous nails into the wall at regular intervals. Arithelli sat upon her trunk, which she considered cleaner than thechairs, and watched the process, her green eyes assuming a curiousveiled expression, a hank of copper-tinted hair falling upon hershoulders. 

There was something uncanny in her capacity for keeping still, and shehad none of the usual and natural fidgetiness of a young girl. Inwhatever position of sitting or standing she found herself she wascapable of remaining for an indefinite period. 

When the carpenter's manipulations had ceased she hung up her dressescarefully, put the rest of her things back into the trunk, as being thesafest place, and sitting down again began to cry in a low, painfulway, utterly unlike the light April shower emotion of the ordinarywoman. 

Here she was in Barcelona, and the fulfilled desire seemed likely tobecome already Dead Sea fruit. Supposing she got ill, or failed tosatisfy the audience. She would see her name to-morrow when she wentout in large letters on the posters of the Hippodrome:

"_Arithelli, the beautiful English equestrienne_, " and underneath someappalling picture of herself in columbine skirts, or jockey's silkjacket and cap and top boots. 

She had been crazy with delight over her success in getting theengagement from the manager in Paris, and it had not occurred to herthat her appearance had had a great deal to do with her having beenaccepted. She had signed a contract for a year; and looking forward ayear seemed a very long time. There had been opposition at home. 

Her father had said, "I don't approve, but at the same time I don'tknow in the least what else you can do. It's Hobson's choice. You canride, and you've got looks of the sort to take in a public career. "

Her mother had been frankly brutal. Now that there was no money, shesaid, she could not have three great girls at home doing nothing. Shehad given them all a good education and they must try and make some useof it. Neither of the younger sisters, Isobel and Valèrie, were oldenough to do anything for themselves, so Arithelli at the age oftwenty-four had taken her courage, which was the indomitable courage ofher race, in both hands, and launched herself on the world. Thebare-backed riding of her early days in Galway had proved a valuableasset, and there was not a horse she could not manage. 

Her slim figure seemed born to the saddle, and her nerve was as yetunshaken. 

The man who had engaged her had been more than a little astonished atthe composure with which she showed off the horses' paces, and wentthrough various tricks. As she was young and inexperienced, he wouldget her cheaply; she could be taught all the stereotyped acts with verylittle trouble, and her morbid style of beauty would be a draw in Spain. 

There was nothing of the English miss about her appearance and fewpeople would have believed her to be only twenty-four. She had nofreshness, no _beautè de diable_. Her beauty was that of line andmodelling. Her quietness was partly the result of a convent education. An old Irish nun had told her once that good looks were a snare and adelusion of the Devil, and that hers would never bring her happiness. 

At least they had got her an engagement, and a circus had alwaysrepresented to her the very height of romance. 

She wondered how she could manage for money till she got her fivepounds next Friday. It was lucky that all her habits, and so on, wereprovided by the management. She wished to-morrow would arrive, for shefelt eager to begin work, and see the horses. She had quite forgottenall about Emile's promised visit, and was just pulling down the rest ofher hair preparatory to getting ready for bed, when he walked inwithout any preliminary knock. 

"How are you getting on? All right?" Then after a momentaryinspection of the many garments that festooned the dirty walls, headded: "I don't think you've got very good taste in clothes!"

CHAPTER II

 "All women are good; good for something, or good for nothing. " CERVANTES. 

The next morning Emile made his entrance with the same completedisregard of ceremony. Arithelli was still in bed and only half awake. She raised herself slightly and looked at him with sleepy eyes. 

"Oh!" she said. "I didn't hear you knock. "

There was the same entire lack of embarrassment in her manner that shehad shown on the previous night. Almost before she had finished hersentence she shut her eyes again, and leant back yawning. It seemed amatter of the greatest indifference to her whether he was there or not. Emile's interest rose by several degrees as he sat down on the edge ofthe bed. 

"I didn't knock, " he said, speaking English fluently enough, but withthe hard, clipped accents of the Slav. "I can't bother about all thathumbug. If you're straight with me I'll be straight with you, and wemay as well be friends. I dare say you think you're very good-lookingand all that, but it doesn't make any difference to me. You're here, and I'm here, so we may as well be here together. "

"I'm so sorry, " Arithelli replied, "but I'm always so stupid and sleepyin the mornings. Do you mind saying it all over again?"

And very much to his own surprise Emile Poleski repeated his remarks. It struck him that there was something of the boy, the _gamin_, abouther in spite of her exotic appearance. That was so much the better andwould suit admirably with his schemes for her. It was better that sheshould not be too much of a woman; for in the realms of anarchy thereis no sex, though comradeship is elevated to the dignity of a fine art. 

For chivalry and love making there is neither the time nor the desire, and those who are wedded to _La Liberté_ find her an all-sufficientidol for purposes of worship. Human life is held of small account, tojoin the Cause being equivalent to the signing of one's own deathwarrant. One would probably have to die to-morrow if not to-day, andwhether it were sooner or later mattered little. Emile's fiercedevotion to the cause of his oppressed country had been the means ofleaving him stranded in Barcelona at the age of forty, without hopes, illusions or ideals. His estates in Russia had been confiscated, hisparents were dead, the woman he had loved was married. 

Now he lived in a dirty back street, in a single room, on two pounds aweek, morbid, suspicious, cynical, keeping his own counsel, owning nofriends, and occupying body and brain with plots, secret meetings, ciphers and the usual accompaniments of intrigue. The Brotherhoodconsisted of fifteen men, though occasionally the number varied. Twoor three would disappear, another one come. There was no feminineelement. An Anarchist seldom marries. To him a woman is either amachine or the lightest of light episodes. 

Emile had not the least desire to make love to the girl whom he had forhis own purposes befriended. He was a quick and subtle judge ofcharacter, and had seen at a glance that in her he would find a studyof pronounced interest. Also she might prove of some utility. It wasone of the tenets of the fraternity to which he belonged never to wasteany material that might come to hand. In the finely-cut face beforehim, with its Oriental modelling and impassivity, he read brains, refinement and endurance. Her hair was plaited in two long braids, anddrawn down over her ears, showing the contour of a sleek, smooth littlehead. 

She had relapsed into silence after disposing of the slovenly meal hehad induced the landlady to provide. The only thing that seemed toworry her was the superfluous dirt that adorned the cups. 

At length she spoke:

"And what sort of a place is this Barcelona?"

"_L'entresol de l'enfer_, " answered Emile curtly. "What are yourpeople doing to allow you to come here alone?"

"They don't know I am here. I ran away, you see. If I get on well, I'll write and let them know, and if not--"

"_Alors_?"

"Oh, I don't know. But I will get on. Don't you think I ought to makea success at the Hippodrome?"

Emile ignored the _naïve_ conceit of the last remark. "But what areyou doing at the Hippodrome at all?" he demanded. 

"I am riding, " she answered with an elfish smile in which her eyes tookno part. 

"Obviously! What are you going to do about _déjeuner_? The landladywon't bring you up all your meals. "

"I don't know, " was the unconcerned answer. 

"You'll have to go to one of the _cafés_, and you had better let meshow you which are the most desirable ones. _Enfin_! have you anyintention of getting up this morning?"

Arithelli yawned again. "I suppose I must go round and present myselfto the Manager. I'm to rehearse a fortnight before I make myappearance in public. "

"Then I had better come with you, " Emile replied with decision. "As Itold you yesterday, I know the Manager fairly well. "

An hour later they walked together through the streets on their way tothe Hippodrome. Emile was a bad advertisement for the secrecy of hisprofession, for he looked a typical desperado. His velvet coat had theair of having been slept in for weeks, and had certainly never been onterms of acquaintanceship with a brush; and, besides the usualAnarchist badge, a red tie, a blood red carnation flamed defiance inhis buttonhole. 

Under a battered sombrero he scowled upon the world; a dark skin, fierce moustache, and arching black eyebrows over hard, grey eyes. 

There are few people who look their parts in life, but Emile mightwithout addition or alteration, have been transferred to the stage asthe typical villain of a melodrama. 

Arithelli had arrayed herself in the cornflower blue frock, which shecarried with a negligent ease, and she still wore the Panama hat withthe flowing veil. As a matter of fact it was the only piece ofheadgear she possessed; for she had been reckless over dresses andboots in Paris and had found herself drawn up with a jerk in the midstof her purchases by her small stock of money coming to an abrupt end. 

Of her carriage and general deportment, which were noticeably good evenamong Spanish women, Emile approved. The crude blue of her dress, thetags and ends of tinselled braid set his teeth on edge. In his "CountPoleski" days he had known the quiet and exquisite taste of the_mondaines_ of Vienna and St. Petersburg, and like most men hepreferred dark clothes in the street. Later on he proposed to himselfthe pleasure of supervising her wardrobe, except her boots, which metwith his fullest approbation. 

He noticed that she did not talk much but observed in silence. He feltthat nothing escaped those heavy-lidded, curious eyes. "Is everythingdirty in Spain?" she said at last. 

"How fussy you are about dirt!" retorted Emile disagreeably. 

"Yes. My mother is a Jewess, you know. I expect we notice thesethings more than the dirty Gentiles. "

Her calm assertion of the superior cleanliness of the tribe of Israel, amused Emile, who had been accustomed to hear the usual contempt of theEnglish-speaking races for anyone possessing a strain of Jewish blood. So it was the Jewess in her that accounted for her haunting voice. 

The Manager was a hatchet-faced and haggard man who looked as if hewent to bed about once a week, on an average, and existed principallyon cigarettes and _absinthe_. The simultaneous arrival of Emile andArithelli roused him from his normal condition of bored cynicism tocomparative animation. 

Like the landlady he naturally made his own conclusions. 

"When did you arrive?" he demanded of Arithelli. Emile, not beingafflicted with a sense of the necessity for elaborate explanation, removed himself a few paces and began to roll a cigarette. 

Arithelli stood her ground, listened to the comments on her appearancewhich the Manager felt himself entitled to use, returned his cynicalsurvey with a level glance, and answered his questions with anunruffled composure. 

It was arranged that she should rehearse every day for two hours in themorning, and another two hours between the afternoon and eveningperformances. For the first act she could wear a habit of any colourshe cared to choose, and a smart hat; for the second act, whichincluded jumping over gates, and the presence of the inevitable clown, she would have to wear short skirts. 

"_They_ won't suit me, " she said. "You see how long and thin I am, andlook at my long feet. I shall look a burlesque. "

The Manager glared at her. 

"I quite believe you will, " he snapped. "I suppose you think you'regoing to do the leaping act in a court train and feathers! Is thereanything more you would like to suggest?"

The intended sarcasm was not a success. Arithelli considered gravely. 

"I don't think so, thank you, " she said at last. "But if I _do_ thinkof anything else I'll tell you. And I _should_ like to see the horses. "

She was filled with a genuine delight by the four cream-colouredpure-bred Andalusians, El Rey, Don Quixote, Cavaliero and Don Juan. They turned intelligent eyes upon her as she entered their stalls, neighing gently as if they recognised a friend. Both the menexperienced the same feeling of surprise at her evident knowledge andunderstanding of animals. In five minutes she had shown that she knewas much about their harness and food as a competent groom. 

The astute Manager, upon whom no sign of intelligence was wasted, saw agood opportunity for getting a little extra work out of his youthfulleading lady. He informed her that she must be down at the stablesevery morning at eight o'clock to inspect the horses and see them fedand watered. As a matter of fact the inspection should have been oneof his own duties, but the girl was not likely to cavil at any littleadditional work that had not been exactly specified in her contract. Besides, if she did, he could soon make it uncomfortable for her. Arithelli made no objection. Though she hated getting up early shewould never have grudged a sacrifice of comfort made on behalf of anyanimal. When all the business was completed, Emile took her to theCafé Colomb for lunch. 

Before they left he knew the details of her history. 

The big house in Ireland, with its stud of horses and unlimitedhospitality, and the rapidly vanishing fortune. Her mother, a Vienneseby birth, a cosmopolitan by travel and education, a fine horsewoman, and extravagance incarnate. Her father, good-natured, careless, manly, as sportsmanlike and unbusinesslike as most Irishmen. When his horsesdied he bought more, keeping always open house for a colony of men asshiftless and as easy-going as himself. 

As the children grew up the money became less and less. They were sentto Convent schools in France and Belgium, then to cheap schools inEngland. 

At length the final crash came, and the big, picturesque, ramblinghouse in Galway was sold, and they came to London with an infinitesimalincome partly derived from the grudging charity of relatives. 

Arithelli cleaned the doorsteps and the kitchen stove, blackleaded thegrates and prepared the meals, which more often than not consisted onlyof potatoes and tea. 

Their mother, who hated all domestic work, and could never be inducedto see that their loss of money was due to her own extravagance, retired to bed, where she spent her days in reading Plato in theoriginal, and writing charming French lyrics. 

When Arithelli ran away she had gone straight to an old friend of hermother's, the widow of an ambassador in Paris. She had made up hermind to earn her own living. She would carve out for herself a career. Having decided that riding was her most saleable accomplishment, shehad gone round to the riding school where the managers of theHippodromes of Vienna, Buda-Pesth and Barcelona waited to select_equestriennes_. 

Luck, youthful confidence, and her tragic, unyouthful beauty, had allranged themselves together to procure her the much desired engagement. 

"I made up my mind to get taken on, " she concluded. "_Et me voilà_! Idid all sorts of desperate jumps that day. I felt desperate. If Ihadn't got it, there was only the Morgue. I couldn't have gone home. "

Emile listened in silence, and drank _absinthe_ and considered. 

That night at a meeting of the Brotherhood he took the leader, Sobrenski, aside and said:

"It was decided the other day that we wanted someone to take messagesand run errands. Someone who could go unnoticed into places where itwould be suspicious for us to be seen. You suggested a boy. Fate hasbeen so kind as to show me a woman who seems to be in every waysuitable--or at least with a little training she will become so. "

"A woman!" echoed the other. "Are you mad?"

"I conclude her to be a woman because of her clothes. Otherwise sheseems to be a mixture of a boy and wood-elf. The combination appearsto me to be a fascinating one. She is of good family, half Irish, speaks three languages, asks no questions, and seems to have anextraordinary capacity for holding her tongue. It is on that accountthat I questioned her sex. Her appearance is excessively feminine. Ofcourse I do not propose to enrol her among us at once. As I have saidbefore, there are many ways in which a woman would be useful. "

Sobrenski pulled doubtfully at his reddish, pointed beard. "Does sheknow anything about the Cause?"

"I fancy not, but she appears to have the right ideas, and after I havejudiciously fanned the flame!--girls of that age are always wildlyenthusiastic over something--so she may as well devote her enthusiasmto us. "

CHAPTER III

 "Out of the uttermost end of things On the side of life that is seamier, There lies a land, so its poet sings, Whose people call it Bohemia. 

 "It is not old, it is not new, It is not false, it is not true, And they will not answer for what they do, Far away in Bohemia. " "Love in Bohemia, " DOLF WYLLARDE. 

"I think, " Arithelli said with deliberation, "that all your friends arevery fatiguing. They have such bad tempers, and do nothing but argue. "

"They live for the serious things of life, " retorted Emile. "Not toplay the fool. "

"Thanks! Is this one of the serious things of life, do you suppose?"She stuck the large needle with which she had been awkwardly cobbling atear in her skirt, into the seat of a chair. 

"What are you doing that for?" demanded Emile. 

"Oh, pardon, I forgot. " She extracted the needle. "I don't think I'munwomanly but I'm not a good sewer. Emile! don't you think we mighthave some music? I really am beginning to sing '_Le Rêve_' quite well. "

Her education in Anarchy had commenced with the teaching ofrevolutionary songs. Emile, who was himself music-mad, had discoveredher to be possessed of a rough contralto voice of a curious maturequality. It would have been an absurd voice for ballads in adrawing-room, but it suited fiery declamations in praise of _LaLiberté_!

They were sitting in Emile's room now, for they made use of eachother's lodgings alternately, and there was a battered and ratherout-of-tune piano. Sometimes, after the evening performance, therewould be a gathering of the conspirators, all more or less morose, unshaven and untidy; and while Emile played for her, Arithelli wouldstand in the middle of the room, her green eyes blazing out of her paleface, her arms folded, singing with a fervour which surprised even herteacher, the lovely impassioned "_Rêve du prisonnier_" of Rubinstein. She was always pleased with her own performances, and not in the leasttroubled with shyness. Also she was invariably eager to practise. Sheshook down her skirt, went across to the piano and began to pick outthe notes. 

 "_S'il faut, ah, prends ma vie. Mais rends-moi la liberté!_"

Emile was sewing on buttons. Though he did not look in the leastdomesticated, he was far more dexterous at such work than thelong-fingered Arithelli. In fact it was only at his suggestion thatshe ever mended anything at all. 

"Do you ever by chance realise what you are singing about?" he demanded. 

"Of course I do. I'm a red hot Socialist. I've read Tolstoi's booksand lots of others. I got in an awful scrape over political thingsjust the little time I was in Paris. It was when the Dreyfus case wason. Madame Bertrand was terrified at the way I aired my opinions. Yousee politics are so different abroad to what they are in England. "

Emile agreed. The girl was developing even more than he had hoped. 

"Ah! This is the first time I've ever heard about your politicalopinions. "

"You've never asked me before. One doesn't know everything about aperson at once. "

Again Emile agreed. Then he said abruptly, "Well, if you have allthese ideas you'd better join the Cause. "

"I'd love to! Shall I have to go to meetings with Sobrenski and allthe rest of them?"

"Probably. But you'll not be expected to talk. You may be told to dosome writing or carry messages. "

"Is that all?" She seemed rather disappointed. Emile felt for amoment almost inclined to develop scruples. She evidently regardedAnarchy at large as a species of particularly exciting diversion. 

"Who are the other women mixed up with it?" she asked. 

"There are no other women. You should feel honoured that we are havingyou. "

Emile stood up, having completed his renovating operations. "You wantto sing, eh?" Arithelli assented eagerly. "You will work?" Emiledemanded. 

"Yes!" Her eyes had become suddenly like green jewels, and she lookedalmost animated. She was more interested in Emile's music than in anyother part of him. His wild Russian ballads sung with his strangeclipped accent and fiery emphasis, fascinated her. She was content tolisten for an indefinite period of time, her long body in a restfulattitude, her feet crossed, her hands in her lap, as absolutelyimmovable as one who is hypnotised. 

Emile, for his part, was equally interested in her exploits invocalism, which he found as extraordinary and unexpected as everythingelse about her. Her singing voice was so curiously unlike her speakingvoice that it might have belonged to another person. It had tremendouspossibilities and a large range, but it was hoarse and harsh, and yetfull of an uncanny attraction. In such a voice a sorceress of oldmight have crooned her incantations. Where did this girl get her soul, her passion, he wondered; she who was only just beginning life. 

He flung over an untidy pile of music, and dragged out themagnificently devilish "_Enchantement_" of Massenet. "Try this, " hesaid abruptly. "It's _your_ kind of song. "

For half-an-hour he exhorted, bullied and instructed, losing both hiscomposure and his temper. Arithelli lost neither. "I don't understandmusic, " she observed calmly. "But show me what to do and I'll do it. Mine's a queer voice, isn't it? A regular croak. "

"You've got a voice; yes, that's true, but you don't know how toproduce it, and you've no technique. You want plenty of scales. "

"Wouldn't that take all the rough off, and make it just like anyone'svoice?"

Emile stared angrily at the exponent of such heresy, and was about toannihilate her with sarcasm, when he suddenly changed his mind. Afterall, she was right. It was what she called "the rough" that helped tomake her voice unlike the voices of most women. 

"Is that your idea? A good excuse for being lazy! If you don't singscales then you must work hard at songs. "

"Yes, I know. " She put her hands behind her back and leant against thepiano. "There was a man in Paris, a friend of the manager. He heardme sing once. He knew I wanted to take up a profession, and he offeredto train me for nothing, and bring me out on the stage. I was to singthose queer, dramatic, half-monotone songs in which one almost _speaks_the words. He meant to write them specially for me, and I was to wearan oriental costume. He said that every other voice would sound _fâde_after mine. "

Emile glanced at her sharply, but her tone and manner was bothabsolutely void of conceit. "Well, why didn't you accept his offer?"

"I don't know. I suppose because it was fated I should come here. Hewanted me to make my _début_ at the _cafés chantants_, but I didn'tlike the idea somehow. He said my voice was only fit for the stage, and would sound horrible in a room. "

Emile twisted his moustache upwards, and his eyebrows climbed in thesame direction. "So! Do you think then that your life at theHippodrome is going to be more what you English call respectable, thanthe _cafés chantants_?"

"There are the horses here. If I don't like anything else I can alwayslike them. "

Emile decided that the man in Paris had been apt in his judgment ofthis fantastic voice. Clever of him also to have noticed that she wasOriental. The setting of her green eyes was of the East. And horseswere the only things she cared about--so far. Like most people whoselives are a complicated tangle of plots, Emile was not particularlyinterested in animals. His life, thoughts and environment were morbid, and the dumb creation too normal and healthy to appeal greatly to him. He discovered that his pupil was able to play in much the sameinconsistent fashion that she sang. With a beautiful touch, full oftemperament and expression, she possessed a profound ignorance of therudiments of music. She could not read the notes, she said, but shecould copy anything he played if she heard it two or three times. Emile found her astonishingly intelligent as well as amiable, andthough the music lessons were not conducted on scientific principles, they produced good results. 

He would give her plenty of music with which to occupy herself till thetime came when she would be fully occupied in serving the Cause. As hehad said, there were no other female conspirators in their circle. Sobrenski, the red-haired leader, detested women, and thought them allfools, who generally added the sin of treachery to their foolishness. Emile himself had taken no interest in any woman since he had lived inBarcelona. He too had found them treacherous. Since he had lost hislittle childish goddess, Marie Roumanoff, he had had no desire to playthe role of lover. If he wanted companionship he preferred men, for ascompanions women bored him. 

But Arithelli was not a woman--yet. She appeared able to keep owncounsel, to do as she was told, and to judge by the way she rode, hercourage would be capable of standing a severe test. Also it hadoccurred to him that she possessed the art of being a good comrade. Itwould amuse him to watch her develop. At present she was full ofillusions about the charm of life in general. Everything for hershowed rose-tinged. Well, it was not his business to dispel illusions. At present it was all "_Le Rêve_, " but after the dream would comeawakening. He took care to leave her very little alone during thefirst few days, and arranged her time according to his own ideas, andescorted her backwards and forwards from her rehearsals at theHippodrome. 

When she was free he took her for long walks up the hills where theycould look down upon the gorgeous city, which, as far as naturalloveliness went, might have been compared to Paradise rather than tothe Hell to which he invariably likened it. 

The beautiful harbour, the dry air, the sunlight and splashes of vividcolour--everything was intoxicating to her. She said very little, butEmile felt that she missed nothing, and lacked nothing in appreciation. For himself the place must be always hateful, for he was in exile. What was the golden sunlight to him when he longed for the snows andfrozen wastes of Russia, that sombre country so like the hearts ofthose by whom it is peopled. 

One day he took her for an excursion to Montserrat, three hours'journey from Barcelona. They left the train at Monistrol, and startedto walk through the vineyards and pine woods towards the famousmountain that towers up to heaven in grey rugged terraces of rock. Allround, for miles, were undulating waves of green, here and there thebrown towers of some ancient castle, or the buildings of a farmstead;and below on the plain the glitter of the winding river. They climbedto the wooded slopes of Olese, where they sat down to rest. Arithellithrew herself on the short, dry grass, with her arms under her head, and drew a long breath of pleasure and relief. 

"I love all this; it makes me feel so free. "

Emile sat with his back against a huge plane tree, and rolledcigarettes, watching her under his heavy eyebrows. She looked in herproper place here, he thought. There was something wild andanimal-like about the grace of her attitude. 

"So you're out of a convent?" he said, hurling out the remark with hisusual abruptness. "_Tiens_! It's absurd!"

"But it's true. Convent schools are cheap, you see, that's why we weresent there. No, I'm not a Catholic. Most of the girls made theirabjurations, but I never did. They told lies there, and they spied. Ihated that. The nuns spied on the children of Mary, and the childrenof Mary spied on the ones who were not the children of Mary, and--" shestopped. 

Emile told her to continue. "I should like to hear more aboutyour--your religious experiences, " he said. "Besides, it will do youmore good to talk than to go to sleep. "

Arithelli complied at once, with unruffled good nature. "Oh, of courseI'll tell you if you like, " she said amiably. "I stopped because Ithought you would probably be bored, _ennuyé_, you know. "

She described the nuns mumbling their prayers, and punctuating themwith irate commands to the children; the many and various rules, the_Mére Supérieure_, the food, the clothes, the eccentricities of_Monsieur le Directeur_. She had the rare and unwomanlike art of wittydescription, though it assorted badly with her tragic face andunsmiling eyes. As she talked her voice rippled and broke intosuppressed laughter. 

"It was all rather dull, _n'est-ce-pas_?" said Emile, who felt moreamusement than he had any intention of showing. "You'll find the Causemore exciting. "

Before any practical steps were taken to make her a member of the bandit was necessary to stimulate her enthusiasm, her imagination. He knewthat for all her outward calmness she had no lack of fire. The coldestcountries sometimes produced the most raging volcanoes. 

"It's the only thing you care about--isn't it--the Cause?" she said. "Tell me more about it. As I'm going in for it I ought to understand. Of course I like anything that's 'agin the Government. ' All the Irishhave always been rebels and patriots. We've helped your country too. "

Emile did not require a second invitation to induce him to expound hisviews. "I suppose you think we throw bombs about by way of a littledistraction?" he asked sarcastically. "What have we suffered before wetook to throwing bombs? Before I came here I saw men and women, oldand young together, shot down in the streets of St. Petersburg. Because they rioted? No! Because they wished to offer a protestagainst the brutalities of the Government officials. Are our petitionsever read, our entreaties ever answered? There were other things too, but they didn't generally get into the newspapers. Women stripped inbarrack rooms, --and that in winter, --the Russian winter, --and beaten bycommon soldiers. Not women of the streets and slums, but women of thehigher classes. Mock trials held with closed doors, the crime, --tohave incurred the displeasure of someone in favour at the Court, --theend, --Siberia! A student is known to be quiet, a great reader andinterested in the condition of the serfs. He is watched, arrested, andon the false evidence of the police ends his days in the mines. Entreaties, reason, appeal! Have we not tried them? Now we have onlyone weapon left--retaliation. Sometimes we are able to avenge ourmartyrs. The two fiends who guarded Marie Spiridonova were shot by themembers of her Society. She was only a girl too--about the same age asyou. We Anarchists do not serenade women and make them compliments, but we think it an honour to kiss the hand of such as MarieSpiridonova. She was tortured, starved, outraged, and came throughworse than death to be transported to a convict settlement. Now she isin the Malzoff Prison. She will never see the world again, but it maybe years before the life is ground out of her by labour and privations. Her case will soon be forgotten, except by a few, and thousands ofother women have gone the same road. The details of the tragedy may bea little different, the thing itself is the same. One day I shall goback to my own country. In the meantime I carry on the campaign here. 

"It's a losing cause. But if we lose we pay. We don't ask for mercy!"

 * * * * * *

They sat together that evening at a _café_ on the Rambla, the strollingplace of the Spanish beauties, who promenaded there in an endlessstream, with waving fans and rustling draperies, carnations and rosesburning in dark, elaborately dressed hair. Tziganes made wild, witchmusic. At the _cafés_ people laughed and drank. 

Suddenly Arithelli leant across the little table, raising her glass. "To the Cause!" she whispered under her breath. 

For an instant the two pairs of eyes flamed into each other; then thoseof the man, hard and steel-grey, softened into something likeadmiration. Their glasses clinked softly together. "To the Cause!" herepeated. "_Mon Camarade_!"

CHAPTER IV

 "These were things she came to know, and to take their measure, When the play was played out so for one man's pleasure. " SWINBURNE. 

A few days later, Arithelli was duly initiated, and given the badge ofthe Cause, a massive buckle with a woman's figure, and on either sidethe words _Honneur et Patrie_. At the suggestion of the leader Emilehad been made responsible for her behaviour. If she betrayed them inany way his life was to pay forfeit. There was a fellow conspiratorworking with her at the Hippodrome, a young Austrian of high rank namedVardri. His father had turned him out of doors, penniless, because ofhis political views; and he was now, half-starved, consumptive andreckless, employed in harnessing the horses and attending to thestables. There were two men under thirty, but the majority weremiddle-aged. They all seemed to Arithelli to have the same wild, restless eyes. They called her "_Camarade_, " and "_Amigo_, " andtreated her not unkindly, but with an utter indifference to her sex. All their sayings showed the most absolute disregard for human life. 

"If a vase is cracked, break it. If your glove is worn out, throw itaway. "

If they heard that some member of the band had found his way to thefortress of Montjuich there was callous laughter and a speculation asto whose turn it would be next. 

Their meetings were held in divers places. Sometimes they would engagea room at the Hotel Catalonia and hold what were supposed to be classesfor astronomy. Sobrenski was the lecturer, the rest posing asstudents. If anyone came in unexpectedly it all looked beautifullyinnocent--the big telescope by the open window, the books and papersand charts, and Arithelli at the desk at the end of the room takingshorthand notes of the lecture. 

There were seldom more than three or four _rendezvous_ held in the sameplace, and more than once there were alarms and rumours of a visit fromthe police. 

As the days wore on Emile found new reason to congratulate himself uponhis discovery of "Fatalité, " as he had nicknamed the girl. She hadshown herself possessed of a charming temper, a fine intelligence, anda most complete understanding of the law of obedience. 

She made no comments on anything she was asked to do, but deliveredmessages and ran errands after the manner of a machine in good workingorder. Even Sobrenski, who hated all women, was obliged to admit herusefulness. 

She was on pleasant terms with everybody down to the strappers, --themen who harnessed the Hippodrome horses, --who adored her. Even thecynical Manager was impressed by her pluck and skill, though heconsidered it his privilege to regale her with comments on her personalpeculiarities. 

The time arrived for her first performance at the Hippodrome. She madeher appearance in the ring in a turquoise blue habit, trimmedhussar-fashion with much braid, and a plumed Cavalier hat, the duskyshadows under her eyes accentuated, and her face powdered. The Managerwould not allow her to use rouge, so under the glaring electric lightsshe appeared more than ever spiritual and unearthly. 

Her type, he said, did not require colour; and the people preferredanything morbid in the shape of looks. 

Emile, who was among the audience on the first night, thought shelooked like a thorough-bred racer as she made a dignified entrance to aclanging stately gavotte crashed out by the band. He had given herdresser a couple of _pesetas_ to have her well turned out, and theresult was exceedingly satisfactory even to his critical eyes. 

Her little head with its piled red hair was carried marvellously high, and she swayed daintily on the back of the high-stepping Don Juan. Shebowed gravely to the various parts of the house, but she had nostereotyped smile either for the boxes or for the lower seats. Herslender figure gave the impression of great strength for a young girl. 

"Steel in a velvet sheath, _ma foi_! Body and soul!" was Emile'sinward comment. "So much the better for the Cause. "

A Spanish crowd usually gives but a languid reception unless roused bysomething either horrible or sensational, but her bizarre appearancehad the effect which the Manager had foreseen. 

In the second act she apparently changed her personality with herclothes, and whirled in astride over two horses with neither saddle norbridle, guiding them and keeping them together by the pressure of herfeet. She had full skirts, to her knees, of white satin, andpearl-coloured silk stockings. Her satin bodice was cut heart-shapedand there was a high jewelled band round her long throat. Her hairhung down in a thick plait, tied with a bow of blue velvet. 

The horses tore round the ring at full gallop; she jumped over gatesand through hoops, and ended her performance by leaping off one of thehorses which was caught by a groom, and flinging herself on to theother, face to the tail, for a final reckless canter round the arena. 

The brilliance and nerve with which she carried through the trick, roused the enthusiasm it deserved, and Arithelli passed out panting andtriumphant to the accompaniment of music and cheers, and showered rosesand carnations. 

The part of her work that she most abhorred was the eight o'clockcompulsory visit to the stables. A circus life is not prone toencourage the virtue of early rising, and she was by nature indolent ina panther-like fashion, and was never in bed till half-past one or twoin the morning. If she had known a little more she could haveprotested on the grounds that her position of leading lady did notinvolve the feeding of her animals. She did it as she had done otherthings without complaint, and presently Emile came to the rescue. Heknew as much about the habits and requirements of horses as he knewabout shop-keeping, being entirely ignorant of both. 

"How much are the brutes to have?" he asked of the Manager. "And whaton earth do you give them?"

"Oh, I generally give 'em fish, " was the sarcastic answer. "What areyou doing here, Poleski? This is the girl's business. I thought shewas keen on her horses. "

"She is also keen on her bed, " Emile answered. "She does her share ofwork. "

The Manager grumbled, but the new arrangement was allowed to stand. 

Arithelli did not consort with the other female members of theHippodrome. 

The one exception was Estelle the dancer, with whom Emile allowed her aslight acquaintance. He neither approved of women in general nor oftheir friendships. Estelle was the _bonne amie_ of the sardonicManager, who occasionally beat her, after which ceremony it was hercustom to drink _absinthe_. Sometimes, for this reason, she was unableto appear on the stage. She would come into Arithelli's dressing roomand weep, and smoke innumerable cigarettes, and when things had beengoing well, they made a _partie carrée_ at the Café Colomb. 

By way of advertising herself and her performance Arithelli was given ahigh, smartly painted carriage in which she drove in the fashionablepromenade of Barcelona, the Paséo de Gracia, with three of thecream-coloured horses lightly harnessed and jingling with bells. 

On these occasions Emile played the part of lady's maid and escort. Heselected her dress, fastened it, scolded her for putting her hat oncrooked, and laced up her preposterously high boots. 

Then he adjusted the battered sombrero, lit a cigarette and drovebeside her, scowling as usual. 

The appearance of both was sufficiently arresting. Arithelli drove asshe rode, recklessly, and yet with science. Her thin wrists and longgirlish arms were capable of controlling the most fiery animal. 

She had made Emile her banker, and always handed over to him her weeklysalary, some of which went to the expenses of the Cause as well as acertain portion in fines, for she had no idea of time and was neverready for anything. 

Nearly every night before she was half-way into her habit the call-boycame screaming down the passage, calling with the free-and-easy mannersprevalent behind the scenes:

"Hurry up, Arithelli, or there'll be a row!"

The question of a disguise for her was discussed at one of the meetingsof the Brotherhood, and it was decided that she should appear as a boy. Her height would be an advantage, and her long hands and feet wouldalso help the illusion in a country where every woman possesses small, plump and highly arched extremities. Besides, when they had to rideout to places at night, she would be less noticeable. One girl among acrowd of men might attract suspicion, though in the daytime she wasmore useful as a woman. 

It naturally fell upon Emile to provide the details of hertransformation, and he presented himself at her lodgings one afternoon, bearing an ungainly parcel which he deposited on the table. 

"You'd better try these on, " he said. "There is a complete suit ofboy's clothes, a wig and everything you'll want. You will have to putyour own hair out of the way somehow. "

It was the drowsy hour of the _siesta_, when no one moved out if hecould help it, and all work and play were at a standstill. Arithelliwas sitting, as was her custom, absorbed in her own thoughts anddreams. For a moment she stared with uncomprehending eyes. She felttired, she wanted to be alone, and she had not heard a single word. Emile shrugged irritably and repeated his remarks. 

"Oh, yes, " said Arithelli. She rose slowly, took up the parcel andretired into seclusion behind the curtains, with which she had screenedoff the alcove and so made herself an improvised dressing room. Therest of the apartment she had altered to look as much like a sittingroom as possible, with the exception of the obtrusive four-poster, which could not be hidden and which upon entering appeared the mostsalient feature visible. There was some tawdry jewellery lying about, and several pairs of the pale-hued Parisian boots she invariablyaffected. Emile made and lighted the inevitable cigarette, while hefidgeted about, turning over the few French and English novels he couldfind with an air of disapproval; for her taste in literature did notcommend itself to him any more than did her taste in finery. 

At one period of his life he had steeped himself in books, knowing thepoetry and romance of nearly every nation. Now he disliked them. Ifshe wanted books he would choose them for her. She would read thelove-songs of the revolutionists to their goddess Liberty, the hauntingwords of those who had suffered for a time, and escaped the SiberianIce-Hell. The fanaticism of his race and temperament flamed into hiscold eyes as he sat and brooded, and he hardly noticed that Arithellihad slid into the room in her noiseless fashion, and was standingbefore him. 

Emile, though little given to being astonished, marvelled at theunconcern with which she submitted to his critical inspection. Shestood and walked easily, and looked neither uncomfortable nor unnaturalin her boyish array, in which the perfect poise of her body showedtriumphantly. 

The black wig, under which she had skilfully hidden her red hair, madeher look more pale than ever. The wide sombrero, tilted backwards, made a picturesque framing to her oval face, and the _manta_ or heavycloak, worn by all Spaniards at night, hung, loosely draped over herleft shoulder. Emile promptly twisted it off. 

"This won't do, " he said. "The _manta_ is never worn like that. Besides it's not enough of a disguise. Watch how I put it on. " With afew rough yet dexterous movements he arranged the dark folds so as tohide her shoulders and the upper part of her body. 

Then he stood back a few paces. "But your green eyes! A disguise for_them_ will be impossible. One sees them always. "

 "_Les yeux verts. Vont à l'enfer!_"

"Do you know that, _mon enfant_?"

"I've heard it before. They've already come as far as _l'entresol_, according to you. "

Emile grinned. He enjoyed skirmishing, and felt that he had met hismatch in words. Before he could think of another retort she added:

"I can see in the dark with my green eyes, so they're useful at allevents. "

"Then you'll find plenty of use for them when you're working forus--and the Cause. When you have to ride upon the hills at night youwill find them of great service. You'll have to ride astride too, soit is better for you in every way to be dressed like this. "

Presently he left her with a few words of praise for her successfulappearance. His first feeling of surprise at her coolness stilllingered. He had expected a scene in a quiet way, a refusal, at leastexpostulation. All his first impressions of her were being verified. Well, he hoped she would continue in her present ways. Undoubtedly shewas an original, certainly she gave no trouble. 

When she heard the street door shut Arithelli sat down, hiding her facein her hands. Once she shivered involuntarily. Directly she foundherself alone the mask of her assumed nonchalance had fallen suddenly. As long as there was an audience she had worn a disguise on her soul aswell as her body. She had been feeling moody and depressed all day, and this last episode was the climax. Everything she had was to be herown no longer. It was all to be for the Cause--even her green eyes!What power it possessed over these men. They admitted it to be alosing Cause, yet it was all they thought about, the sole thing forwhich they lived--and died. She had not thought it would be like thisat first. 

She remembered how gaily she had discoursed of Tolstoi and PrinceKropotkin, and of their writings which had revealed to her a new world. Her first interview with Sobrenski had shown the relentlessness of theman she was to serve. She felt that he would sacrifice all alike, menand women, to his idol, and would never stop to care whether the victimwere willing or unwilling. The fact of her sex would gain her noconsideration at his hands. Lately she had been impressed with thesensation of being surrounded by an impassable barrier drawn round her, a circle that was gradually becoming narrowed. She had begun to knowthat she was being incessantly watched. If Emile were occupied withthe business of the Society, and could not fetch her from theHippodrome himself, he never failed to send an understudy in the shapeof one of his allies, generally one of the older men. When she emergedfrom the performers' entrance a silent figure would come forward tomeet her. Often they exchanged no words throughout the walk home, butshe was never left till her own door was reached. 

If she went anywhere to please herself, to a shop, or to see Estelle, she was expected to give a full account of her doings. It was anunderstood thing that she should not go to the _cafés_ or publicgardens alone, nor speak to anyone not already known and approved byEmile. With all these conditions she had complied. Already oneillusion had vanished. She had thought to find freedom in Barcelona. 

She had indeed found "_La Liberté_. "

But the Fates had chosen to be in an ironical mood, and while makingthe discovery she had herself become a slave. In all her day there wasno hour that she could call her own. 

CHAPTER V

 "I have gained her! Her Soul's mine!" BROWNING. 

"You slouched last night in the ring, Fatalité, " Emile said. 

Arithelli flung up her head. "I didn't!"

"You looked like a monkey on a stick, " proceeded Emile stolidly. "Youwere all hunched up. I wonder Don Juan didn't put you off his back onto the tan. "

"Don Juan knows better! You see animals are usually more kind thanpeople. "

She was too proud to admit that the long hours, hard work, and want ofproper food and sleep had lately given her furious backaches, whichwere a thing unknown to her before, and a cause of bitter resentment. She had a healthy distaste for illness either in theory or practice. That night she sat Don Juan erect as a lance, passing Emile in hisaccustomed place in the lower tier of seats with a shrug and scornfuleyebrows. 

She had felt more than usually inclined to play the coward during thelast few weeks. The heat, worry and over-fatigue had begun, as theymust have done eventually, to affect her nerves. When she had feltmore than usually depressed and listless Emile had taken her to one ofthe _cafés_ and given her _absinthe_ which had made her feel recklesslywell for the moment, and ten times more miserable the next day. He hadalso advised her to smoke, saying that it was good for people who hadwhims and fancies, but smoking did not appeal to her, and she neverenvied the Spanish woman her eternal cigarette. 

She felt as if she would like to sleep, sleep for an indefinite period. She was wearied to death of The Cause, and the Brotherhood, with theirintrigues and plots and interminable cipher messages. 

She had been three months in Barcelona, and now fully justified Emile'sname for her. Tragic as a veritable mask of Fate, she looked ten yearsolder than the girl he had met on the station platform. 

The longer she worked for the Cause the more she realised that Anarchywas no plaything for spare moments, but a juggling with Life and Death. 

At first they had given her but little to do--a few documents to copy, some cipher messages to carry. Then the demands upon her leisure hadbecome more frequent. She found she was expected to make no demur atbeing sent for miles, and once or twice there had been dreadfulmidnight excursions to a hut up in the mountains. 

The realisation of the folly of trying to escape from the burden thathad been laid upon her affected her nerve and seat during herperformances in the ring. 

For the first time she felt her courage failing her when she enteredSobrenski's house in answer to his summons. When he had given her thedespatch she made an objection on the grounds that the time taken inconveying it would absorb her few hours of rest. 

"It's too far, " she protested. "I can't go there to-day. "

"Then you can go to-morrow, " answered Sobrenski in the accents offinality. He had never cared about the girl's inclusion in theirplots, and took his revenge in exacting from her considerably more thanhis pound of flesh. 

Moreover he suspected her of treachery, and disliked her for thequickness of her wit in argument. 

Even his unseeing eyes told him she looked both ill and haggard, but ifshe were there, well, she must work like the rest of them. 

Arithelli hesitated for a moment, and when she spoke for all her pluckher voice was a little rough and uneven. "I'm tired of being an errandboy!"

Sobrenski looked at her, drawing his eyebrows together. Everyone ofthe band had a nickname for her, and his own very unpleasant one was"Deadly Nightshade. " Some of the others were "Sapho" and "BeckySharp, " which latter Emile had also adopted as being particularlyappropriate. 

"Oh, very well, " he answered. "Shall it be the messages or a bullet?You can take your choice. Perhaps you would prefer the latter. Itmakes no difference to me. This comes of employing women. WhenPoleski brought you here first I was opposed to having you. Womenalways give trouble. "

"Would you have got a man to do half the work I do?" she flashed outwith desperate courage. 

"Then _do_ your work and don't talk about it, " retorted Sobrenskisharply. "If you are absolutely ill and in bed, of course we can'texpect you to go to various places, but as long as you can ride everynight at the Hippodrome, you can certainly carry messages. "

He turned his back on her and took up some papers from the table, andArithelli went out, beaten and raging. 

Emile found her lying on the bed, her hands clenched by her side, herproud mouth set in bitter lines. As he came in she turned away fromhim, to face the wall. 

"_Tiens_!" he observed, "you are a lazy little trollop. " Emile wasproud of his English slang. 

Finding there was no answer he changed his tone. "Hysterics, eh? Theywon't do here. Turn over, I want to talk to you. "

The girl moved mechanically, and Emile surveyed her. There were slowtears forcing themselves under her heavy eyelids. 

"I wish I were dead!"

"Probably you will be soon. So will the rest of us. "

"What brutes you all are!"

"Because we don't care whether we die to-day or to-morrow? _Souventfemme varie_! Just now you seemed so anxious, --besides, if one belongsto the Cause one knows what to expect. " Emile strolled towards theuncomfortable piece of furniture by the window, that purported to be anarmchair, and sat down. 

"I loathe the Cause! I didn't belong to it from choice. Why did youmake me join?"

"Because I thought you would be useful. You _are_ useful and probablywill be more so. "

"Suppose I refuse to do anything more?"

"They will not give you the choice of refusing twice. "

"Emile, I believe you are trying to frighten me. Tell me what theywould do. "

"As I introduced you to the Brotherhood, I should naturally be the onechosen to execute judgment on you. _Enfin_, my dear Arithelli, Ishould be called upon to shoot you. We don't forgive traitors. If welet everyone draw back from their work simply because they happened tobe afraid, what would become of the Cause? Also let me remind you howyou came to me boasting of your love of freedom. 'I'm a red-hotSocialist. ' That's what you said, didn't you? Perhaps you haveforgotten it. Well, I haven't. Socialism doesn't consist of standingup in a room to sing. "

Arithelli made no answer. She lay like a dead thing, and after a pausethe slow cynical voice went on. 

"There was another woman in our affair about two years ago. Her namewas Félise Rivaz. She got engaged to one of the men, and then itsuddenly occurred to her that comfortable matrimony and Anarchy didn'tseem likely to be enjoyed at one and the same time. So she persuadedthe man to turn traitor and run away to England with her, where theyproposed to get married. 

"Their plans came out, --naturally, --those things generally do. We allspy upon each other. They both felt so secure that they came togetherto a last meeting--I can show you the house if you like. It's down inthe Parelelo, the revolutionary quarter. 

"They strangled the woman, and cut off her arm above the elbow--Iremember she had a thick gold bracelet round it with a date (a _gaged'amour_ from her lover I suppose)--and they made him drink the blood. He went mad afterwards. The best thing he could do under thecircumstances. " Emile shrugged. 

"There are plenty more similar _histoires_. But perhaps I have toldyou enough to convince you of the futility of attempting to draw backfrom what you have undertaken. "

Still there was neither movement nor answer. Emile got up, and came tothe bed. 

"_Allons_! It's time you were dressing. You'll be late again, and oneof these days you'll find yourself dismissed. You must just go on andput up with it all. Life mostly consists of putting up with things. "

But even this consoling philosophy failed to have a rousing effect. 

For the first time in her life Arithelli had fainted. 

 * * * * * *

When she came to her senses that evening Emile sent the landlady with amessage to the Hippodrome, telling the Manager to substitute anotherturn, and then made Arithelli get into bed. Her dress and boots cameoff and reposed upon the floor. The rest of her clothes were left on. 

These details did not worry Emile. Then he found a book and satreading till she had drifted into a heavy sleep, the sleep ofexhaustion. 

In his own way he was sorry for her, and his feelings were by no meansas brutal as his words. At the same time he did not believe in adisplay of sympathy. According to his ideas it was demoralising, andcured no one of complaints, imaginary or otherwise. 

Also it was likely to make people hysterical. Therefore when Arithelliwoke at six o'clock in the morning, and sat up panting, with a hand ather left side, he elevated both shoulders and eyebrows. 

"_Qu'est ce-qu vous avez donc_? You're all right now. "

He knew perfectly well that there was no pretence of illness. Thestrained eyes, the blue shadows round the mouth told their own tale. 

"Oh, Emile, my heart feels so queer! I'm sure it must be all wrong. "

"_Ma foi_! _Ces femmes la_! _Il y a tou jours quelque chose_! Firsta faint, then a heart! How often am I to tell you, Arithelli, thatthat part of your--your--how do you say it?--anatomy--is quite withoutuse here? Have you any brandy in the room?"

"There's Eau de Cologne on the washstand. "

He mixed water with the spirit and gave her a liberal dose that soonhelped her to look less ghastly. 

She lay back feeling almost comfortable, wishing Emile would see fit todepart, but Count Poleski returned again to the subject of hermisbehaviour. 

Like most men he was not at his best in the early morning, and thenight's vigil had not improved his temper. 

He sat scowling after his manner, black eyebrows meeting over greyeyes, hard as flint. "If you are going in for this kind ofperformance, what will be the use of you?" he enquired sarcastically. 

Perhaps after all Sobrenski had been right in employing no women. 

"Even the best machine will get out of order sometimes, " the girlreplied wearily. 

"And when that happens one sets to work to find another machine to takeits place. "

"I didn't know about the horrors; you ought to have told me. It isn'tfair. "

There was neither passion nor resentment in the low voice. "What shallI do?" she went on, after waiting for Emile to speak. 

"Put up with it, or better still go in for the Cause seriously. "

"Don't you call this serious? Blood and brutalities and slave-driving?You talked about _l'entresol de l'enfer_, but I'm beginning to thinkI've stepped over the threshold. "

"_Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute_!"

Arithelli bit her lips. "I don't feel in the mood for arguing now. Iwish you would leave me alone. "

"On condition that you won't go in for any more hysterics, I'll go andsettle with the Manager that you don't have to appear to-night. It'slucky there happens to be a new turn with those trapeze people. Theaudience won't miss you. Has Sobrenski given you anything to doto-day?"

"I don't know. I can't remember. Oh, yes, I was to go to the Baroni'sat two o'clock. "

"I'll see to that. A cipher message?"

"Yes. It's fastened under my hair. " She dragged herself into asitting position and extracted the little wad of paper with shakinghands. Emile took it. 

"Good! I shall be back at five o'clock. You can get up later and comeround to my rooms. Do you understand?"

"Yes!"

When he had gone she cowered down into the big bed shivering. Everybone in her body ached as if she had been beaten. She had thesensation of one who has been awakened from a bad dream. Was it allreal or not?

Last night and its doings seemed centuries ago. She still heardEmile's voice as if from a distance, telling the story of the lovelysiren woman who had been strangled, and then the room rocked, and thewalls closed in upon her. 

His words worked in her brain: "_Go in for the Cause seriously. Remember it's liberty we are fighting for. A life more or less--what'sthat? Yours or mine? What does it matter? Do you wonder we don'tmake love to women? It's a goddess and not a woman before whom we burnincense. Blood and tears, money and life! Is there any sacrifice toogreat for her altar?_"

And she had been both frightened and fascinated. 

This was what Anarchism made of men like the cynical Emile. It hadnever occurred to her before that even Sobrenski, whom she regardedsolely as a brutal task-master, was himself a living sacrifice. 

She drowsed and brooded through the day, and having arrived at Emile'sroom and finding it empty, she "prowled, " as she herself would haveexpressed it, among his few belongings, for she possessed a veryfeminine curiosity. Under a pile of loose music she found the portraitof a little blond woman, beautiful of curve and outline, in a lace robethat could only have been made in Paris or Vienna. 

The picture was signed _Marie Roumanoff_, and on the back was written"_Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse!_" There were songs too scrawledwith love-messages in Emile's handwriting. 

She pored over them with a vivid interest quite unmingled with anythought of jealousy. Emile always said that no revolutionist everwasted time or thought on women. 

After all, if she were shot to-morrow who would care? She had writtento her people and sent them photographs and newspapers with theaccounts of her triumph. 

Success was a sure road to approbation. If she had failed she wouldnot have written. 

The Hippodrome engagement could not last forever. A littlecarelessness, a loss of nerve, and her career would be at an end. 

Sometimes when she had been singing "_Le Rêve_, " she had really meantit all. 

"_S'il faut, ah, prends ma vie_!"

Only a few days ago Emile had stormed at her in his rasping French, because she had, with the vehemence of youth, denounced the Anarchistleader as a relentless brute. 

"You think yourself over-worked and ill-used--you!" he said as hestrode up and down the room twisting his fiercely pointed moustache. "Look at Sobrenski. He works us all, but does he ever spare himself?Look at Vardri? Rich, well-born, starving at the Hippodrome on a few_pesetas_ a week. I thought you had better stuff in you. Are yougoing to turn out English milk-and-water? You're _not_ English, yousay? No, I suppose you're not, or you wouldn't talk about 'dirtyGentiles. ' If you think Anarchy is all '_Le Rêve_' you'll soon findyourself mistaken. If some of us dream dreams we have also to faceactions and realities. "

Perhaps the episode of Marie Roumanoff belonged to the days before hejoined the Brotherhood and became an exile from his country. 

She knew that once upon a time he had owned land and estates in Russia, and Emile the Anarchist of Barcelona had been known as Count Poleski. 

She kept her discoveries to herself, and when Emile returned he foundher crooning over the piano. She appeared to have quite recovered herboyish good spirits, and demanded a singing lesson, for under histuition her passion for music had developed and increased. 

"It's so nice to have a change from the heat and dust and thosehorrible electric lights, " she said. "Let's enjoy ourselves and tryover all your music. What a lot you have, and it all seems to havebeen bought in different places. Rome, Paris, Vienna, Dieppe, London!Fancy your having been in London!"

Emile's collection of songs covered a wide field and ranged from thegypsy ballad of "The Lost Horse, " to "The Bridge, " in the performanceof which he revelled. 

Arithelli sat in a corner and rocked with inward laughter over hisatrocious English, and evident enjoyment of the morbid sentiments. Forin spite of her face Arithelli had a fine sense of the ridiculous. 

"You don't say the words properly, " she said. "You make such mouthfulsout of them!"

"And what of you?" Emile retorted in great wrath. "You with yourFrench all soft, soft like oil!"

"Yes, that's the Irish half of me. "

"And your Italian so _raûque_ so hard--!"

"That's the Jewish half of me. Oh, don't let's quarrel! I do want tolearn to sing properly. "

"Then don't fold your arms, " her instructor said sharply. "I supposeyou think it looks dramatic, but how can you learn to sing what youcall 'properly, ' with your chest all crushed up like that?"

CHAPTER VI

 "When I look back on the days long fled, The memory grows still dreamier. Oh! what fantastic lives they led, Far away in Bohemia. 

 "There were laws that were only made to break, In a world that never seems half awake Till the lamps were lit--there were souls at stake. Far away in Bohemia. " DOLF WYLLARDE. 

Barcelona in August was like the Hell to which Emile likened it. 

The rich escaped from the heat to their villas up in the mountains, those whom business, or lack of money, kept in the city, existed in aparched and sweltering condition. Arithelli still kept her place amongthe performers at the Hippodrome, though after the fashion of circusartists her name had been changed. 

She was now "Madame Mignonne" from Paris, and wore a golden wig, andcame on the stage riding a lion in the character of a heathen goddessin the spectacular display which always ended the performance. 

She pined for the _haute école_ and trick riding in which she soexcelled, and felt unholy pangs when she saw her beloved white horsesbeing driven in a chariot by a fat, vulgar English woman, arrayed inscanty pink tunic and tights. 

She was not afraid of the lion, who was old and toothless enough to beabsolutely safe, but her new role was not a great success. 

The golden hair did not suit her any better than did the classicaldraperies, and she grew daily thinner. As a matter of fact she waspractically going through the process of slow starvation. 

She had never, even in her healthily hungry days, been able to eat theabominable Spanish dishes--meat floating in oil, and other things whichshe classed together under the heading of _cochonneries_. 

She generally lived on fruit, a little black bread, coffee, and_absinthe_. 

Emile would try and bully her into eating more, and occasionallyessayed his talents as a _chef_, and cooked weird looking things in hisrooms over a vilely smelling English oil stove, but the Jewess inArithelli found him wanting in the "divers washings" she required ofthe saucepans, and they generally ended these Bohemian repasts with aquarrel. 

She went about her work in a half-stupefied state, as one who isperpetually in a trance. She was past fear now. Nothing mattered. Midnight rides on a mule up in the mountains, meetings in the lowquarter of the town, the danger of being arrested while carrying adespatch. 

"_C'est ainsi que la vie_!" Emile's motto had become also her own. 

She was once more a perfect machine. Even the only thing thatSobrenski could find to say against her was that her appearance was tooconspicuous for a conspirator and that her hands and feet would betrayher through any disguise. 

Emile, though still outwardly as unsympathetic as ever, was not blindto the change in her looks and manner. 

Putting the Cause out of the question, he did not wish "Fatalité" toget ill. Her company amused and distracted him. 

He liked to hear her views on life, and to colour them with his owncynicism, and he enjoyed teaching her to sing and hearing her argue. 

For all her quiet she was curiously magnetic and had a way of makingher absence felt. She was never noisy or exacting and had none of thepride or vices of her sex, and though she was often depressed she wasnever bored, and in consequence bored no one. 

They had many traits in common, including fatalism and morbidity, forthe Slav temperament is in a hundred ways akin to that of the Celt. 

In spite of his jeering remarks Emile thoroughly appreciated the girl'spluck, and knew that if she failed it would be purely from physicalreasons. 

"Iron in a velvet sheath, " he had described her, and iron did notbend--it broke. 

After some consideration he approached the very unapproachable Manager. "It's time you gave your leading _equestrienne_ a holiday, " heobserved. "She's getting ill. If you don't let her have a rest soonshe'll be falling off in public, or having some fiasco. She was halfdead the other night after the performance. "

The Manager made profane remarks in the dialect of Silesia, of whichplace he was a native. He was fresh from quarrelling for the hundredthtime with Estelle, and was in the last frame of mind to desire rest orpeace for any inhabitant of the globe. 

By himself and everyone else at the Hippodrome, Arithelli wasconsidered the property of the Anarchist, and Emile had taken very goodcare to disabuse no one of the idea, but had rather been at some painsto create such an impression. 

For her it was the best protection, and kept her free from the insultsand attentions of other men. 

Bouquets and jewellery he was willing that she should receive; they didno harm and the latter could always be sold. 

In cold and dispassionate argument he explained to the irate Managerthe folly of ruining good material by injudicious use. 

"You pay her as little as you can considering she is a draw. She doesthe work of three people, including keeping the books when you are notin a condition to wrestle with arithmetic. If you had your way shewould be cleaning out the stables. "

"Bah!" sneered the other. "It would do her good--take the devil out ofher--hard work doesn't hurt that type. She's all wire and whipcord, your She-Wolf, Poleski. Has she been snarling at you?"

"You'd better give her a week off, " proceeded Emile, unmoved. "Theaudience will be getting tired of her if you're not careful; she hasbeen on too long without a break. Get a fresh _artiste_ and take itout of her salary. I shall give her a week's cruise round the harbourand see what that will do. "

"Well, try and put a little flesh on her bones, " said the Managerrudely. "I never saw such lean flanks! She's got the expression of adeath's head. It's a good thing the Spanish don't care for cheerfulgrins or she wouldn't be here two days. "

And so it came to pass that on the following Sunday Arithelli foundherself sitting on the deck of a yacht anchored far out in the harbour, with the shores of Barcelona only a faint outline in the distance. 

They had come aboard the previous day. 

Emile had made her no explanations beyond saying that he was going totake her for a sea trip, and after her custom she had asked noquestions. 

The yacht, which was an uncanny looking craft, painted black and called"_The Witch_, " she knew by reputation, and had often seen it slippinginto the harbour after dusk. It was the property of two Russianaristocrats, friends of Emile's, who helped the Cause by conveyingbombs and infernal machines, and taking off such members of the band ashad suddenly found Spain an undesirable residence. 

Arithelli was not in the least interested in either of the men, thedark, handsome, saturnine Vladimir, or the fair-haired, pretty, effeminate youth to whom he was comrade and hero. 

But she liked their smartness and well-groomed air, and their spotlessclothes, after Emile and his dirty nails and slovenly habits, and sheappreciated to the full the surrounding refinement and comfort, andenjoyed the daintily served meals, the shining glass and silver and thedeft, silent waiting of the sailors. 

She had been given a luxurious cabin which seemed a paradise after herdirty, carpetless bedroom, and in it she could laze and lounge in peacewithout the eternal practising and rehearsals and running errands thather soul loathed. 

The hot sun glared down upon her, as she sat watching the racing waves. 

She was a fantastic, slim, _bizarre_ figure with her coppery hair, overwhich a lace scarf was tied, and high-heeled slippers on her beautifulslender feet. 

In her ears dangled huge turquoises, showing vividly against the whiteskin that was coated thickly with scented powder. 

The manager had told her that she must not get tanned or red or itwould spoil her type, and she now "made-up" habitually in the daytime. 

Her whole array was tawdry and theatrical, and utterly out of keepingwith her surroundings. 

The two owners of the yacht, who wore immaculate white linen clothesand canvas shoes, expressed to each other their disapproval of herwhole get-up, and particularly of her clicking heels. In common withmost men, they abominated an _outré_ style of dressing and too muchjewellery, and above all such finery at sea. 

The girl must be mad! Didn't she know that a schooner was not a circusring? If she were such a fool Poleski should have taught her betterbefore bringing her on board. 

They agreed that he had sense enough in other things, and had certainlytrained her not to be a nuisance. 

After _déjeuner_ Emile had hunted up the least doubtful of the Frenchnovels they possessed and sent her up on deck to get the benefit of thesea air of which she was supposed to stand in need. 

"_Va t'en_, Arithelli, " he said. "You don't want to be suffocatingyourself down in a stuffy cabin. You're here to get lots of ozone andmake yourself look a little less like a corpse. Besides, we want totalk. "

She felt very much depressed and neglected as she sat dangling "_Lesconfessions d'une femme mariée_, " which were virtuous to dulness andinterested her not at all, in a listless hand, long and delicate likeher feet, and decorated with too many turquoise rings. Below, in thecabin, she could hear the noise of the men as they argued and shoutedat each other in a polyglot of three different languages. 

Arithelli felt more than a little resentful. Why had they shut her outand prevented her from hearing their discussions?

The men at the other meetings had always wanted her in the room. 

She had been entrusted with all their secrets and there was no questionof betrayal. She knew too much about the consequences now to try that. 

When Emile came up from below she asked him why he had insulted her byturning her out. 

Did he not trust her, or did he think she had not enough intelligence. 

For answer he laughed cynically, "I'll make use of you and yourintelligence fast enough--when I want them. You were cavilling atbeing overworked the other day. "

Of Vladimir and Paul she saw nothing in the daytime, for they bothignored her, but in the evenings they all sat together up on deck, andPaul sang and played the guitar while Arithelli would listen entrancedand faint with pleasure. 

A love of melody was the birthright of her race, and the boy had agenius for music. He seemed to have but two ideas in life--that, and adevotion which almost amounted to idolatry for the older man. 

They would walk up and down for hours, Vladimir with his hand on Paul'sshoulder talking, gesticulating and commanding, while the other, hiseyes on the ground, listened and assented. 

Sometimes Vladimir would speak to him in Russian with an accent thatwas in itself a caress, and Arithelli, who watched them curiously, noticed and wondered to see the boy flush and colour like a woman. 

She always looked forward with the keenest pleasure to those evenings. 

The days bored her, inasmuch as she was capable of being bored, and shehated the glare and glitter of the sun and sky. 

It was too much like the blue-white lights of the Hippodrome. Withnight came the glamour of Fairyland, that magic country in whichIreland still believes, and which is ever there for those who seek it, "East o' the Sun, and West o' the Moon. "

The yacht drifting idly at anchor in smooth water, the stars in theirbed of velvet black, the magic of air and space. 

The incense-like scent of Turkish cigarettes and black coffee, thelittle group of men lounging in their deck chairs, the resonant, fullnotes of the guitar, and Paul's voice rising out of the shadows. 

If he had sung standing on the platform of a brightly lit concert hallhalf the charm would have vanished in that distraction which thepersonality of a singer creates. 

In the illusion of his surroundings the man himself did not exist. 

There was only the voice--the singer. Hungarian folk-songs that firedher blood and made her restless with strange longings; "_La vie estvaine_, " eternally sweet and haunting; then some wickedly witty song ofthe _cafés_, and melodies of Gounod full of infinite charm. Last ofall came always "_Le Rêve_, " in which Emile and Vladimir joined as ifit were some National Anthem, and which left her quivering withexcitement. 

CHAPTER VII

 "There would no man do for your sake, I think, What I would have done for the least word said; I had wrung life dry for your lips to drink-- Broken it up for your daily bread. " SWINBURNE. 

When the week of dreams and rest was over she went back to theHippodrome with somewhat of relief in her feelings. 

At least the work prevented her from thinking. Though she wasphysically less languid, the sea air had neither succeeded in puttingany more flesh on what the Manager called her "lean flanks, " nor had itmade her look much more cheerful. He had the sense to let her take herplace as _equestrienne_ once more, and had announced her reappearancein flaming posters. 

The stablemen and helpers were all delighted to see her again, and intoken of their satisfaction presented her with a hideous and unwieldybouquet, in which all colours were arranged together so as to give theeffect of a kaleidoscope. They liked her for her sweet temper andinvariable courtesy, and respected her for her knowledge of horses. 

Estelle came and embraced her and was voluble over the failings of her"_bon ami_, " the sardonic manager. 

Arithelli received a hearty round of applause as she rode into the ringon her favourite "Don Juan, " whose wavy tail and mane were decoratedwith turquoise ribbons that matched her habit. 

At least she was happy on horseback, and she loved the animals and theyher. 

Even the performing sheep and monkey, and the toothless lion came infor a share in her affections. She had a new and difficult trick to gothrough that night, but this particular sort of danger only made herfeel exhilarated. 

Emile's stories of blood and horrors had sickened her, but the chanceof breaking her neck over a high jump held no terrors. 

She made her exit, gaily waving her silver-handled whip, and Vardri, who was standing at the entrance of the ring, came forward quickly tolift her off her horse before the groom could reach her. 

"You're wanted to-night in the Calle de Pescadores, " he whispered, asshe rested her hand on his shoulder to jump down. "As soon aspossible, and go in carefully--there's a scare about spies. "

He felt her body stiffen and the little smile that came so rarely diedin an instant, leaving her once more "Fatalité. "

She nodded by way of assent and bent down to gather up her habit. 

The ring-master was only a few feet away, and they could never becertain as to who was to be trusted. 

Vardri stood looking after her as she walked away with her head well upand her shoulders thrown back as usual. 

The two had become good friends with the comradeship induced by thesimilarity in their misfortunes. 

Both were young, reckless and without money beyond what they earned, though, whereas Arithelli had been more or less tricked into herpresent position, Vardri had been infatuated with the Cause from thetime he was old enough to take an interest in anything. The worship ofthe goddess Liberty had left with him room also for the adoration of ahuman being, and in a boyish chivalrous way he had tried to make thingseasier for Arithelli. 

He managed to bring her occasional flowers and music out of hisstarvation wages, and was always jealously careful of the way in whichher horses were groomed and turned out. They had a curious resemblanceto each other, and when Arithelli was dressed in boy's clothes for herjourneys up in the mountains, they might have been two brothers. Onewas dark and the other fair, but both had the same haggard, well-modelled faces, the same pale skins, and thin, supple figures. 

They were exactly of a height, too, and when Arithelli disguisedherself, she pushed her red hair under a sombrero and black wig. 

Even Sobrenski's lynx eyes had been at fault in the semi-darkness ofthe hut, and he had sworn at her in mistake for Vardri. As the dressertook off her habit, she asked the woman whether Monsieur Poleski hadbeen behind the scenes during her turn, and was there a note or message?

It appeared that there had been no sign of Emile, and she hesitated fora moment, hardly knowing what to do. 

The order for her presence in the Calle de Pescadores, which of coursehad been sent by Sobrenski, had told her to come at once. 

On the other hand, Emile had always told her to wait for him in herroom till he came to fetch her. If she went through the streets alonethere would be a row, and if she were late at the _rendezvous_ therewould also be a row. 

"_C'est ainsi que la vie!_"

She lifted her thin shoulders after the manner of Emile and decided tostart at once. She wiped all the make-up from her face with a damptowel, swaying a little as she stood before the glass. 

The excitement of her reception and the ensuing episode had made herheart beat at distressing speed. 

"You're not ill, " she adjured her pale reflection. "It's allimagination. Emile says all these complaints are. Any way, you're notgoing to give in to it. "

She shut both ears and eyes as she sped through the restless city thateven at this hour was astir with life. 

She was only glad that there was no moon. Roused for once out of hernaturally slow and indolent walk, she was soon in the poor quarter andclimbing the stairs to the third floor of a horrible little house, theback of which looked out on the dark slums of the quarter of theParelelo, the breeding-place of revolutions; the district between theRambla and the Harbour. 

The house was like the one that Emile had described when telling her ofthe murdered woman, Félise Rivaz. 

The very air reeked of intrigue and hidden deeds. 

She looked round first of all for Emile, but he was not there, and onlyhalf the usual number of conspirators were assembled. 

Vardri, who had left the Hippodrome the minute he had delivered hismessage, was sitting on the end of the table swinging his feet andwhistling softly. 

He had bribed one of the "strappers" to finish his work, and slippedout, only arriving a few minutes before her. 

He had risked dismissal, but that was no great matter. 

The Cause came first, and he feared danger for Arithelli, knowing thatif there was anything specially risky to be done she would be the onechosen. 

Sobrenski was always harder on her than on the others. 

He watched her with the hungry, faithful eyes of an animal, and got upfrom his seat with instinctive courtesy. Like all the rest he wore theAnarchist badge, a red tie, and the hot, vivid colour showed up thelines of ill-health and suffering about his eyes and mouth. 

In spite of his disreputable clothes and wild hair, there stillremained in him the indefinable signs of breeding, in the thin, shapelyhands that rested on his knee, and in the modulations of his boyish andeager voice. 

None of the others took the least notice of the girl's entrance. 

Nearly all of them were as well-born as the young Austrian, but to themshe was simply a comrade, a fellow, worker, not a woman. 

She gave him a little friendly gesture and went quietly to a seatagainst the wall, where she sat in one of her characteristic attitudes, her feet crossed, and showing under her short dark blue skirt. 

Emile had made her buy this one plain and unnoticeable garment for useon these occasions. 

After she had been in the room a minute, Sobrenski turned from the manto whom he had been talking in a careful under-tone, and bolted thedoor. 

"Listen, all of you, " he said. "We have received information that thishouse will be watched to-night. Whether the spy is one who wasformerly one of us, we do not know--yet. It appears that it is Poleskiwho is the suspect. They have some evidence against him that isdangerous. If he is seen coming in here to-night, they will arresthim. The next time we will change the place, but for the present allthat can be done is to warn him against coming here. Fortunately hewill be later than usual, because he does not leave the Café Colombtill after midnight. Someone must be sent there to stop him. It willnot do for any of us to be seen coming out, so she"--he indicatedArithelli--"must go. "

Arithelli wasted no time in response. She was only too eager to getout of the abominable place, and was already half way to the door whenSobrenski stopped her. 

"Not that way!" he said. "What are you thinking of? You will walkstraight into the arms of the spies who are probably watching the houseby this time. No, you must go by the window at the back; the rest ofus will stay here all night. "

"This house gives on the quay by a lucky chance, " remarked one of theolder men; "we should be well trapped otherwise. There are severalfeet between it and the water. "

Vardri's eyes had never moved from the girl's face. He knew that herheart was affected, and she had told him once that she would neverattempt to go on the tight-rope or trapeze because the mere thought ofa height always terrified her. 

In answer to Sobrenski's gesture, she moved towards the window, whichanother of the conspirators was cautiously opening. 

Vardri pushed himself forward into the group. "She can't go downthere, " he said hoarsely, "It's not safe--look at the height!"

"She'll go down well enough if she holds onto the rope. "

"The rope may break or fray through on the sill. "

"She takes her chance like the rest of us. "

"The rest of us--we're _men_!"

"There are neither men nor women in the Cause. Do you need to betaught that now? Stand back!"

"I'll go down in her place. "

"You will do nothing of the kind. Which of us is the leader here?"

Sobrenski had twisted the girl's arms behind her back, and he washolding her by the wrists. He expected her to scream or struggle, butshe remained absolutely passive. 

One of the men was making a slip-knot in a coil of rope. 

Vardri's blood was hot as he looked on. Blind with helpless rage, hewas conscious of nothing but the little set face and defiant head. Hehad come suddenly into his heritage of manhood at the sight of heralone, defenceless and roughly handled by brute beasts who calledthemselves men. 

He was mad, too, with a man's jealousy. From the earliest moment hehad seen Arithelli he had given her homage as a woman. The _gamin_, the "Becky Sharp" that Emile and the others knew, he had never seen, and he had always resented her numerous irreverent nicknames. 

He could do nothing, nothing!

Get himself shot or strangled, perhaps, and what use would that be toher?

"Come!" said Sobrenski, turning her towards the window. 

For the first time since she had entered the room, Arithelli spoke:"Leave me alone for a minute. No, I won't move--_parole d'honneur_!"

When she was released, she put out her left hand. "_Mon ami_, what'sthe use of arguing? I'm the errand boy, _vois-tu_? My work is tocarry messages. If you make a scene it's only the worse for me. It'sgood of you to want to go instead. I shall not forget. "

The voice, subtle and sweet as ever, the intimacy implied by thefamiliar "thou" acted like a charm to the boy's wild fury. Before hercourage and dignity it seemed out of place to make any further protest. 

He crushed the long and lovely hand against his lips with mingledpassion and reverence. 

There was a red streak across the wrist. 

"A fine melodrama!" sneered Sobrenski. "Keep all that for the stage, it isn't needed here. _Allons_! We can't waste any more time, therehas been too much wasted already. "

Vardri walked to the furthest end of the room, turning his back uponthe group at the window, and thrust his fingers into his ears to deadenthe sound of the scream for which he waited in tortured anticipation. 

Excitable and neurotic, like all consumptives, his imagination made ofthose waiting moments a veritable hell. 

She would never get down in safety--an old and hastily knotted rope, adisregard of all ordinary precautions, and her body in the hands of menwho handled human lives more carelessly than most people would handlestones. He bit his lip till the blood ran down to his chin. 

Here he stood doing nothing, he who would have been tortured to saveher!

The window was shut and one of the men said: "She's down all rightafter all. I thought by the look of her she would have fainted. Shehas some pluck, Mademoiselle Fatalité!"

"Yes, " answered Sobrenski. "Here's the coward and traitor. "

Vardri wheeled round, looking straight into the cold eyes of hisleader. He had heard the last words. She was safe, that was all thatmattered, and for himself he was reckless. 

"Traitor, am I? Yes, if the Cause is to include the ill-treatment ofwomen!"

"Women? Again women? Are our meetings to be used as love trysts. There was a certain episode two years ago--Gaston de Barrés and FéliseRivaz--you remember it? Ah, I thought so! Then let it be awarning--in the future you will be suspected and watched. There is noneed for me to dilate upon the punishment for treachery, all that youknew when you joined us. You may consider yourself lucky to haveescaped so easily to-night. Through the few minutes' delay you havecaused, Poleski may have been arrested. "

Vardri shrugged and sat down. Like Arithelli, he recognized thefutility of mere words upon certain occasions. 

Moreover, now that the flame of his indignation had died down, he hadbegun to feel wretchedly ill and spiritless with the reaction thatcomes after any great excitement. 

He sat shivering and coughing till the dawn, while the other men talkedin low voices or played cards. One or two slept fitfully inuncomfortable attitudes on the floor. 

No one grumbled at the discomfort or weariness of the vigil. 

They who looked forward to ultimate prison and perhaps death itselfwere not wont to quarrel with such minor inconveniences as the loss ofsleep. 

Sobrenski had pulled the solitary candle in the room towards him andsat writing rapidly and frowning to himself. 

His fox-like face framed in its red hair and beard looked morerelentless and crafty than ever in the revealing light, and the boyshivered anew, but not from physical cold. 

He did not fear the leader of the Brotherhood for himself, but forArithelli--Arithelli, the drudge, the tool, the "errand boy, " as shehad called herself. 

Perhaps in time even she would become a heartless machine. 

Human life had seemed so cheap and of so little account to him once, but since he had loved her--

She could never live among such people and in such scenes, and stillremain unscarred. 

Again the little desperate face rose before him. 

If they did not succeed in killing her soon by their brutalities, shewould commit suicide to escape from the horrors that surrounded her. 

It had never occurred to Vardri to be jealous of Emile. 

With the curious insight that love gives he had formed a true idea ofthe relationship between the oddly-assorted pair. He had never thoughtof himself as her lover. 

To him she was always the Ideal, the divinity enthroned. 

He was content to kiss her feet, and to lay before them service andsacrifice. 

Yet, though he might build a wall of love around her, he knew it couldgive her no protection against the realities of her present life. 

She had given him dreams, and in them he could forget all other things, the things that the world calls real. 

Everything had vanished as a mist--the dirty room, the chill of thedawn, his own physical wretchedness. 

He heard only the honey-sweet voice, saw only the outstretched hand offriendship. 

"_Mon ami_, " she had called him, he who had never aspired higher thanto be known as her servant. 

CHAPTER VIII

 "For all things born one gate Opens, . . . And no man sees Beyond the gods and Fate. " SWINBURNE. 

WHEN Emile arrived at the Hippodrome, only a few minutes after hisusual time, he found no one but the dresser, who was clearing away thelitter of clothes, jewellery, powder-puffs and flowers. 

Arithelli had vanished. 

She had never before failed to wait for him, and he knew she would nothave started alone without some very good reason. He questioned thedresser and found she knew nothing beyond that "La Nina, " as she calledthe girl affectionately, had left immediately after her last turn. Shehad asked if the Señor had been in yet, but hearing he had not, she haddressed and gone at once. She had not even stayed to put on a cloak, and had left her hair still in a plait, and only a _velo_ over it. Shehad seemed in great haste (but that was always so with the English!)and had looked ill. The Señor must not be alarmed, she added, foldingArithelli's blue habit with wrinkled, careful hands. True, Barcelonawas an evil place for one so young as "La Nina, " but the blessedsaints--

Emile gave her a _peseta_, and left her to her invocations. In thelong passage that led from the dressing-rooms he ran into Estelle, whowas just sufficiently drunk to be excitable and quarrelsome. She stillhad on her dancer's costume of short skirts of poppy-coloured tulle, and scarlet shoes and tights. She was further adorned with long, dangling, coral ear-rings, and a black bruise on the left side of herface under the eye, the outward and visible sign of her last encounterwith the Manager. 

She saluted Emile with a vindictive glare from her black eyes, andtried to push past him. She hated him in a spiteful feminine way forhis complete appropriation of Arithelli, of whom, thanks to him, shenow saw very little. She had quarrelled with all the other womenemployed in the Circus, but Arithelli had always helped her to dress, and given her cigarettes and listened to her woes. 

Emile blocked the way, catching the dancer by the wrist as sheattempted to slip by, leaving his question unanswered. He repeated it, and after a minute's sullen refusal to speak, Estelle stamped her footsavagely upon the floor, and collapsed into a state of hystericalvolubility. No, she had seen nothing, nothing! she protested inFrench. Scarcely ever did she see her little friend now, and whosefault was that? Would Monsieur Poleski answer her? As MonsieurPoleski did nothing of the kind, she continued to rage. All men werebrutes! Yes, all! She had no friends now and if she did consoleherself--what would he have?

Emile decided that she was speaking the truth, and that there was nouse wasting time in making other enquiries. 

One thing seemed certain--that Arithelli had left the building. Fromthe Hippodrome he went next to her lodgings, also with no result. Hecould only now suppose that Sobrenski had sent her off at a moment'snotice on some unusual errand. The possibility of her having gone tothe house in the Calle de Pescadores did not occur to him. Accordingto the last arrangement they were not expected there till aftermidnight. It was only eleven now. He would go to the Café Colomb, andspend the hour there. It was no use to search for her further, and ashe assured himself there was not the least reason to become alarmed. She was not likely to lose her head, and she knew her way about theplace. 

The Colomb was more or less a recognised resort of the manyrevolutionaries with whom the city abounded. The proprietor was knownto be in sympathy with their schemes, though he took no active part inthem himself. He was considered trustworthy, for notes and messageswere often left in his charge, and his private room was at the disposalof those who wished for a few minutes' secret interview. When Emileentered he was greeted by several of the men who sat in groups of twoand three at little tables, busy with Monte and other card games. 

The smoke of many cigarettes obscured their figures, and clouded themirrors with which the place was lined from floor to ceiling. Emilesat down alone and ordered an _absinthe_. 

When called upon to join in the play, he refused with a scowl and arasping oath in his native tongue, and as the evening grew on towardsmidnight he was left to himself and his meditations. 

His thoughts were still with Arithelli, the weird witch-girl, whoseeyes were like those of Swinburne's fair woman, "Coloured like a water-flower, And deeper than the green sea's glass. "

He, who now never opened a book, had once known that most un-English ofall poets by heart. 

In her many phases Arithelli passed before him, as he stared moodily atthe shifting opal-coloured liquid in his glass. He thought of her ashe had often seen her, fighting through her work at the Hippodrome, thelittle weary head always gallantly carried, and then when she haddismounted and was in her dressing-room, the rings round her eyes, hershaking hands and utter weariness. He remembered her consideration forher horses, her loathing of the ill-treatment of all dumb things socommon here. Once he had found her in the market-place, remonstratingin her broken Spanish with the country women for the inhuman manner inwhich they carried away their purchases of live fowl, tied neck toneck, and slung across a mule, to die of slow strangulation under theblazing sun. All the animals at the Hippodrome had been better treatedsince she had been there. It was characteristic of the man that helaughed at her to her face for her campaign against the nationalcruelty, and in secret thought of her with admiration. 

In many ways sexless, in others purely a woman, to every mood shebrought the charm of individuality. 

_Tiens_! He was falling in love, he jeered to himself, cynically. Inlove with that tall, silent creature, who was never in a hurry andnever in a temper, and who walked as if she had been bred in Andalusia. 

Absurd! He was only interested. She had brains, and she never boredhim. 

Besides, she was only twenty-four, and one could hardly allow a girl ofthat age to be thrown warm and living to the wolves and vampires ofBarcelona. Perhaps he had been wrong in letting her do somethings--drink _absinthe_, for example. One lost one's sense of mentaland moral perspective in a place like this. At least he had guardedher well. If he had not met her that day at the station, she mighthave fallen into worse hands than his own. Things could not go onindefinitely as they had been going. What was to be the end of it all?

Eventually she would fall in love, and a woman was no more use to theCause once that happened. No vows would be strong enough to keep herfrom a man's arms once she cared. She would not love lightly oreasily, and where would she find love, here in Barcelona?

Half unconsciously, he found himself comparing Arithelli with the womanwho had betrayed him. Emile never lied, even to himself, and he knewnow that Marie Roumanoff had almost become a shadow. 

A plaything she had been, a child, a doll, a being made for caressesand admiration. To a woman of her type camaraderie would have beenimpossible. He had not wanted it, and it had not been in her nature togive it. 

A man, who had been sitting opposite, got up, gesticulated, put on hishat at a reckless angle, and, with a noisy farewell to his companions, swaggered out. 

In the mirror that faced him Emile saw the quick furtive glancebestowed upon him, though he sat apparently unconscious of it. 

Something at the back of his brain suggested to him that he knew theman's face, that he had seen him before. A spy probably. It wasnothing unusual for any of them to be "shadowed, " and for theirout-goings and in-comings to be noted. 

The highly gilded French clock on the mantel-piece at the far end ofthe room announced the hour as being a quarter to twelve. Emilestooped down to pick up his sombrero which had tumbled off a chair onto the floor, when he remained with outstretched hand, arrested by thesound of a woman's voice which came through the partly opened door ofthe proprietor's private room and office. A woman's voice? It wasArithelli's unmistakably. 

He recovered himself and the sombrero together, and twisted round inhis seat so as to get a view of the door, which was on his left hand, half way down the long room. It had a glass top, across which a darkgreen curtain was drawn. Emile knew that it was possible to enter thisroom without passing through the _café_. There was another door whichled into a passage through the kitchen and back part of the house, andfrom thence into a side-street, or rather a small alley. 

He had often been that way, and it was generally used by thefrequenters of the place when they had reason to guard their movements. 

He listened again. 

The voice was even more hoarse than usual and more uncertain. Thoughhe could not hear the words, the broken sentences gave an impression ofbreathlessness. When she stopped speaking he heard the voice of theproprietor raised in an emphatic stage-whisper. Yes, Monsieur Poleskiwas within. Mademoiselle was fortunately in time to find him. IfMademoiselle would give herself the trouble to wait but for onemoment--. 

The little man fancied himself an adept at intrigue, and his methodswere often a cause of anxiety to those he befriended. His nods andgestures and meaning glances as he emerged would have been enough toarouse suspicion in the most guileless. 

He stood blinking his short-sighted eyes through the haze in his effortto attract Emile's attention without being detected. The latter got upand sauntered towards him. 

"_Bon soir, Monsieur Lefévre_, " he said carelessly. "We have a littleaccount to settle, you and I, is it not so?"

Fat Monsieur Lefevre rose gallantly to the occasion. He bowed Emileinto the room, locked the door by which they had entered, and withanother bow and a muttered apology scuttled through the passage intothe back regions. Two minutes later he made his reappearance in the_café_ by the front way, and went to his place behind the counter withthe satisfied face of a successful diplomatist. 

His little sanctum was typical in its arrangement of the Parisian_bourgeois_. 

Numerous picture post-cards of a famous chanteuse of the FoliesBergeres proclaimed Monsieur's taste in beauty. For the rest, everything was neat and rather bare of furniture. There were chairssymmetrically arranged like sentinels along the walls, tinted lacecurtains, a gilded mirror, and a few doubtful coloured pictures, all ofwomen. An unshaded electric light flared in a corner. Arithelli stoodresting one hand on the round polished table in the centre of theapartment. Her dark blue dress was torn in two places, and smearedwith patches of dust. The _velo_, or piece of drapery worn on ordinaryoccasions instead of the mantilla, hung down her back in company withthe long plait of hair, which had come untwisted at the ends. Her facewas strained and haggard, and the tense attitude spoke of torturednerves. 

She was still struggling for breath, and appeared almost unable tospeak, but Emile was not minded to allow her much time for recovery. 

Patience was not numbered among such virtues as he possessed. 

"_Tiens_!" he began. "What is it now, Fatalité? You look as if youhad been having adventures. Have you been getting into mischief? Andwhere have you been?"

"In the Calle de Pescadores out at Barcelonetta. Sobrenski sent mewith a message to you. The place is being watched. If they see you goin you may be arrested. The others got to hear about the spies, andwent early. They are going to stay there all night because it isn'tsafe to leave. " Her tone was that of one who repeats a well-learnedlesson. 

Emile shrugged. "Spies? So that's it! There was a man just now inthe _café_ who looked like it. Probably he is waiting to go outsidenow to 'shadow' me. He may wait till--! And how did you get out?"

"They let me down from a window at the back of the house. I got on tothe quay and came here by the long way and through the Rambla. " Therewas a pause, and then she said in the same mechanical voice, "Sobrenskisaid I was to tell you not to come. It isn't safe. "

Emile did not answer. He could see that she was trembling violentlyand on the verge of an hysterical crisis. He rather hoped she wouldbreak down. It would seem more natural. Women were privileged to cryand scream, not that it was possible to imagine her screaming. Hedragged forward a chair from the immaculate row against the wall. 

As he did so he noticed that she kept her left hand behind her back asif to conceal something. 

"Sit down, " he ordered. "What's the matter with your hand? Are youhurt?"

The girl retreated before him. 

"No!" she answered defiantly. 

But Emile's quick eyes had seen a crumpled handkerchief flecked withred stains. 

"Don't tell lies, Fatalité!" he said sharply. "Give me your hand atonce. "

Arithelli obeyed, holding it out palm upwards. 

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

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

She turned her head aside with a shudder. Emile muttered anotherexpletive, 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 arough but effectual fashion. 

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

"Voilà!" said Emile. "That will be all right to-morrow. What did theydo to you?"

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

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

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

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

He heard her flinch and draw in her breath as she covered her face withher free hand. Her low painful sobbing reminded him of theinarticulate 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 tointerfere nor to console her. He was wise enough to know that to ahighly strung nature like hers too much self-repression might bedangerous, and he was humane enough to be glad that she had the reliefof tears. 

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

She still fought desperately for composure, thrusting a fold of thetorn _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 atouch that had in it something of a caress. 

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

At last words came. 

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

"Emile! Emile! I must give it up. I can't go on!"

"And you can't turn back, _mon enfant_. "

"I'll run away. "

"Do you think they wouldn't find you? You know enough about ourorganisation now. No one who has once joined us is ever allowed toescape. You would be found sooner or later, and then--you rememberwhat I told you once? That I am responsible for you to theBrotherhood?"

He spoke calmly, patiently, as if he were explaining things to a child. 

If his associates could have seen the cynical Emile Poleski of ordinarylife they would have found reason to marvel!

The gesture of uncontrollable horror told him that she understood onlytoo well. What should the upholders of the Cause care for ties, forfriendships, for pity?

If she were recaptured Emile would be her executioner. He mightrefuse, but that would not save her and he would be shot as well. Whyshould he suffer because she had lost her courage and turned traitress?

She tried to collect her senses, and to think properly. Everythingfelt blurred and far off. One thing alone seemed certain--that therewas no way out of the _impasse_. 

Emile had walked to the glass-door and unlocked it. Then he came backto her. 

"It's time we were going, " he said. "It will not do to be here toolong. As our friend the spy is patrolling the street outside inreadiness for my appearance, we will go out the other way. The CalleSanta Teresa is nearly always deserted. It's just as well you shouldbe seen with me. They don't know yet that you are working for us, soit will look less as if I were _en route_ for a meeting. But before westart, have you decided to be wise and to save me from an unpleasantduty?"

"Yes. I'll stay. At least while you are here. "

"While I am here?" the man echoed. "Et alors--?"

"Then?" She threw out her arms in a hopeless gesture. "Who knows?Who can read the future? And after all, as you have said, 'What doesone life more or less matter?'"

CHAPTER IX

 "Ninon, Ninon, que fais-tu de la vie!" DE MUSSET. 

Arithelli awoke next day in her comfortless room, and lay wonderingover the waking nightmare of the past hours. Everything seemed sodifferent in the morning. There was no thrill of excitement now, nothing to make her blood run quickly. She only felt flat, dull, stupid, and disinclined to move. How strange and unlike himself Emilehad been. She had lost her nerve, raved, and threatened to run away, and he had neither sneered nor abused her. Her hand, still wrapped instained linen, had now begun to burn and smart considerably, and wasproof sufficient of the reality of her experience. Her spine and thesoles of her feet tingled as she lived again through the horror of thedescent from the window. She could never endure a repetition of thatordeal. Next time she would refuse and they could add one more murderto the list of their crimes. 

She dragged herself up and dressed slowly. She remembered that therewas to be a gala performance at the Hippodrome that night in honour ofthe presence of one of the Infantas, her husband and suite, who werepassing through the town, and had announced their intention of beingpresent. For all the performers it meant more work and an extrarehearsal. 

When Emile came in they shared their coffee and rolls together. Shewas thankful that he made no reference to her passionate outburst ofthe night before. He was outwardly as curt and dictatorial as ever, and neither of them discussed the affairs of the Brotherhood. 

"I must go down to practise, " Arithelli said after a while. "Shall yoube there to-night? You know there is to be a grand performance inhonour of the loyalties?"

"No, " answered Emile, "I shall be busy. Besides, the Royalties will besafer if I'm _not_ there! We don't trouble ourselves about theseparticular ones though. They're not important enough. "

"I'm sorry you're not coming, " Arithelli answered. 

Emile ungratefully disregarded the implied compliment, and threw out ablunt, "Why?"

"I don't quite know. I think there is going to be something unlucky. "

"You're going to tumble off, you mean? Better not! You don't want toget turned out, do you?"

Arithelli turned to a mirror on the wall. 

"Do I look very ghastly?" she asked. 

"Not much more than usual. None of us look very fresh out here, do we?Do you think your hat is on straight, you untidy little trollop? Well, it isn't! Hurry up, --it's late. No, I'm not going down there withyou. I'll stay here, and do some writing. "

The rehearsal that morning seemed interminable. For the first timesince she had ridden in public Arithelli bungled over her tricks. Shejumped short, miscalculated distances, and once barely saved herselffrom a severe fall. 

The ring-master, with whom she was a great favourite, shook his headreproachfully at her, as he paused to rest and wipe his heatedcountenance. He was a greasy and affable personage, whose temper wasas easy as his morals. He was more soft-hearted than most of hiscompatriots, and he honestly liked Arithelli and admired her riding. 

"What have you there, Mademoiselle?" he enquired pathetically. "Neverhave I seen you like this before. You fear the grand people, is it notso? You have no heart, no courage! But again! Again!"

In the midst of his exhortation the Manager descended suddenly upon thescene. As a matter of fact he had been watching for the last tenminutes from one of the entrances, and he had seen her failure toaccomplish her jumps successfully. 

"This won't do for to-night, " he said angrily. "We want your bestwork, not your worst. Do you suppose I'm going to stand your laziness?"

Arithelli was sitting at ease upon Don Juan's back as he paced slowlyround the ring. She did not look up or answer, which enraged theManager still further. Her silence was one of the things about herthat always annoyed him most? She was the only woman he had never beenable to bully into a state of collapse. 

He turned on the ring-master, who was grinning to himself. 

"_Allez-vous en_! I'll see to this. "

Señor Valdez looked uncomfortable. For an instant he felt almostinclined to expostulate on Arithelli's behalf, but the Manager's rageswere well known to his employes, and the little man had no intention oflosing his present position. He flung down his long whip, and retiredmuttering vengeance. 

The Manager strode into the centre of the ring, picked up the lash anddrew it through his fingers. 

He swore at Arithelli, he swore at Don Juan, and he started therehearsal all over again. 

Arithelli clenched her teeth and rode doggedly forward. The arena swambefore her, and her limbs felt weak and heavy as those of one who isdrugged, and her lacerated hand added to her difficulties. That sheshould presume to be ill, had not entered into the Manager'scalculations. If he had realised the fact he would have said thatpeople who were ill were of no use in a circus, and the sooner she leftit the better. 

The treadmill continued until Arithelli would have welcomed an accidentas a break in the grinding monotony. The exercise instead of makingher hot, had made her shiver as if with great cold. She felt as if shehad been practising for days instead of hours. It was of no use! Shecould not go on any longer. She slipped from her standing position onthe broad pad saddle to Don Juan's back, and without waiting for theword of command, reined him to a standstill in front of the Manager. 

"You must let me go, " she said. "I can't do any better now. "

The Manager stepped back a pace, and dropped his whip with sheerastonishment. For an instant he stared with open mouth, then he foundspeech. 

"You sit there, do you, and tell me you refuse to work! You with yourinsolence! When you fall and that long neck of yours goes _crack_" (hesnapped a finger and thumb together in expressive pantomime), "then Ishall laugh--_nom d'un chien_!--how I shall laugh. "

Arithelli waited in silence, a faint smile curling her lips. One hand, laden with rings, moved caressingly up and down Don Juan's silky mane. She had hitherto answered abuse with maddening indifference. Now sheflung back her head and mocked him. 

"So you hope I'll fall, " she said. "Perhaps I hope so too. Do youthink I care, that I'm afraid of breaking my neck?"

Her voice was not raised a tone from its ordinary level, but passionand contempt vibrated in every accent. An unwilling admiration stirredthe man's dull brutality. He could dismiss her to-morrow, but he wouldnever find another woman who would be her match for physique andendurance. Besides, others would know their value and demand a largersalary. 

He pointed to the performers' exit. "_Allez_!"

As she rode past, Arithelli made him a little bow. It was the saluteof a courteous duellist to his adversary. To his profound surprise theManager found himself acknowledging it, with like dignity. 

At eight o'clock that evening she sat before the glass in herdressing-room and awaited the shouted summons of the impish call-boy, who respected no one on earth, and to whom she was never "Mamzelle" or"Señora, " but only Arithelli. The dresser had gone out for an instant, leaving the door ajar, and a noisy burst of applause swept along thepassage. 

The audience was in a particularly good temper, and ready to be amusedat anything. In view of the royal guests the Manager had providedseveral exciting novelties. There was a wonderful troupe of performinghorses who did everything that a horse is popularly supposed to beincapable of doing; there was a gypsy girl from Seville with amarvellous bear, whose intelligence appeared to be of a superiorquality to that of the average human being; there were new jokes, newtricks, fresh costumes. 

As Arithelli rode in she heard her name called, and her state of frozenmisery suddenly gave way to a hot thrill of excitement. 

Her head went up like a stag, and her nostrils dilated. She inhaledagain the familiar warm scent of freshly strewn tan and hay andanimals. It had intoxicated her as a child of twelve, when she hadbeen taken to see a travelling circus in Ireland, and it intoxicatedher now. 

The seats were a packed mass of people, and in the upper places andfrom the royal box, bright colours flamed, and jewels and restless fansglittered and moved. In honour of the occasion every woman had drapedherself in the graceful mantilla, either black or white, and even thepoorest wore a scarlet or orange silk-fringed _crêpe_ shawl. 

The usual precautions as to detectives and a guard of soldiers had beentaken, but the buxom and amiable Infanta was popular among the lowerorders, so that no revolutionist outbreak was feared. 

Her charities were famous, her diamonds and Paris toilettes equally so. She smiled graciously at Arithelli as horse and rider bowed before her, and pulling out a few blossoms from the bouquet that rested on theledge, threw them into the arena. As the girl looked up and the levelunsmiling gaze met hers, the older woman started back. 

"_Santa Vierge_!" she muttered, hastily crossing herself. "She looksin Purgatory already, with those strange eyes!"

CHAPTER X

 "The nights that were days, and the days that were nights, Griefs and glories and vain delights, With Fame before us in fancy flights, We mocked each other and cried 'All's well'!" LOVE IN BOHEMIA. 

Of her first act Arithelli had no fear. She knew that she was safe intrusting to the skill and training of her horse to accomplishsuccessfully all the stereotyped movements of the _haute école_. Shehad only to sit still and look graceful, and guide him through hispaces as he waltzed, turned or knelt. She carried a whip for show, butshe had never used it. A word, a caress had always been enough, andshe would have been beaten herself rather than touch the beautifulcreature that carried her. 

In the next act it would be all different. Everything depended on herown balance and accuracy. It would be all trick work then, not riding. As she slid out of her habit and into the ugly ballet-skirts sheloathed, her courage vanished and she trembled as she faced theaudience for the second time, transformed in white satin and pale blue, the thinness of her neck and arms painfully apparent. 

The flying rush through the air as she jumped the hurdles and gatesmade her feel horribly dazed and giddy, and unable to collect hersenses in time for the next leap. As she descended lightly in herheelless silk slippers upon Don Juan's back after the fourth hurdle hadbeen passed, she swayed and only by a violent effort recovered herself. Her heart seemed to be beating right up in her throat and choking her. She put up one hand and pulled at her turquoise collar till the claspgave way and thrust the blue stones into the low-cut bodice. The bandsounded louder than ever, the light danced and waved. Round and roundand round again, while the ring-master's whip cracked monotonously. 

The rhythm of the waltz beat in her brain as the music in somedelirious dream. She wondered dully why there was so little applausenow. Was she doing so badly? Once she had jumped too low and knockedagainst a hurdle instead of clearing it properly. The grooms hadhelped her by lowering everything as much as possible, but all theycould do had not been able to disguise her unwonted awkwardness. 

She would have a few minutes' rest when the clown came on, and perhapsthat would help her to go through the rest of the act without anabsolute breakdown. 

The interlude was all too short, the signal came and she sprang up andpoised herself mechanically. Again the waltz music struck up and DonJuan's hoofs fell with a soft thud upon the tan. The hurdles and gateshad all been cleared successfully, and now she must dismount and lether steed go round alone while she ran across from the opposite side ofthe ring and vaulted from the ground to the saddle. 

It was the trick she had found impossible to get through at therehearsal, the trick she most dreaded. Everything depended on hercoolness and steadiness. She must start exactly at the right time, andmeasure the distance with unerring precision. For the first time inher life she feared the audience. She knew too well the fickle natureof a Spanish crowd. To a performer who failed to please them theywould be merciless. People who screamed aloud for more blood when thesport had been tame at a bull-fight, people who habitually torturedtheir animals, were not likely to show consideration to one who waspaid to entertain them. They would applaud furiously one minute andhiss furiously the next. 

As she stood alone, waiting, she glanced instinctively towards theplace where Emile always sat, and wished he had been there. He wouldbe angry with her if she failed, but she felt somehow that he would besorry for her as well. Perhaps he might even make excuses for her, forhe was the only person who knew about the episode of the previousnight, and her injured hand. Sometimes she had loved the swaying crowdof human beings for whose amusement she risked her life and limbs. Nowshe hated the eager watching faces. They only wanted to see her fall, she told herself. 

She ran blindly across the open space. The next instant she was on herfeet on the ground again and Don Juan had stopped short. Her upwardleap had carried her on to his back, but she had not been able to keepher balance. 

There was dead silence and then the hissing in the audience broke out, vehement and unrestrained. 

That she had pleased them hitherto went for nothing in her favour now. She had been clumsy, ungraceful, had failed--that was enough. 

Arithelli herself scarcely heard the sounds of execration, as she stoodswaying with one hand over her eyes to shut out the horrible glare. She was conscious only of that and the strident noise of the band, andthe sensation of choking she had felt once before. The instinct of allanimals to hide themselves in the dark when ill, was strong upon her. 

The fat little ring-master who alone had the sense to see there wassomething wrong, advanced and spoke to her in an agitated whisper. Shegave him her hand and he led her out, leaving her hurriedly to go backand apologise to the irate spectators, and to claim their indulgence onthe score of her sudden faintness. 

 * * * * * *

Would she ever get to her room, Arithelli wondered, as she struggleddown the passage. It had never seemed so long before. Her hand wentup to her throat again. She longed for something cool to drink torelieve the aching and dryness. It must be caused by the heat and dustof the ring, she thought. 

A man's voice sounded behind her, and then hurrying footsteps. Shepulled her long blue cloak round her and went on without answering orturning her head. It could only be the Manager coming to upbraid her. 

An arm was flung round her protectingly and she turned with the face ofa hunted animal, and looked up into the wild dark eyes of Vardri. 

"What has happened? You're ill! It's no wonder. _Mon Dieu_, thosebrutes last night . . . "

He pulled her head back against his shoulder, dropping his voice to amurmur of exquisite gentleness. "_Mon enfant--ma petite enfant_!"

"You saw me fall?" she whispered. 

"The men told me when they brought Don Juan out. I didn't see whathappened. Were you hurt or only faint?"

"Oh, my hand? That's nothing. Emile says it will heal in a day ortwo. But I felt so stupid. . . . Vardri, you don't think I'm going tobe ill, do you? I've never been ill in my life . . . Never!"

The boy made some incoherent answer. Her piteous entreaty tore at hisheart. Every fibre in his starved body ached with the desire to giveher the rest and peace she needed above all things. 

What could he do without money? His own miserable wages barely servedfor necessities. He was only a useless vagabond, an outcast. Heground his teeth together at the thought of his own impotence. 

"Courage, little one. They will cheer you again to-morrow. They arecruel, these Spaniards, and fickle. You must not care. "

It did not seem strange to either of them that he should be holding herin his arms. After last night everything had changed. Love, Youth, and Nature were hard at work weaving the bonds that drew them together. 

The fact that she suffered his caresses had given him the right ofmanhood to protect her, to be her champion, to fight her battles. Ifhe could do nothing else for her, at least he could fight. For him thecrown of happiness could be found in loyal service. Of love-making inits ordinary sense, Vardri neither thought nor dreamed. To have foundhis Ideal, the one woman, surely that was enough. The innatefastidiousness that goes with good breeding had kept his life clean, his hands unsoiled. 

He had hated the other women in the Circus, and felt sorry for them atthe same time; and on their side they liked him and regarded himsomewhat as a fool. Their voices, their coarse expressions, theirlight jokes all jarred on him. 

He pitied them, for their lives were as hard as his own, and when hecould he helped them, for among the wanderers in Bohemia there is anever-abiding comradeship. The element of fanaticism in his nature, which had once been absorbed by the Cause, now spent itself upon ahuman being. 

The firm yet gentle clasp in which he held her, was the outward symbolof the love and courage that made him tense as steel. To every manthere comes his hour, and his was now. Both for her sake and his ownhe dare not keep her with him. That they had been left undisturbed solong was a miracle. Besides, as she was ill, the sooner she was in bedthe better. 

He half led, half carried her to the door of her dressing room, and shethanked him with a smile, a gesture. Her throat hurt so much that allspeech was an effort. 

"You must go now, " she whispered. "You will get into trouble againthrough me. "

The boy threw a quick furtive glance along the whitewashed passage. With characteristic recklessness he had forgotten that the chances ofhis summary dismissal were looming exceedingly near. 

He had left half his work undone the previous night, he had appearedlate that morning, and now he was in a part of the building to whichall the grooms and stable helpers were forbidden entrance. 

"You'll let me bring you home, " he pleaded. 

Arithelli shook her head. "You can't. "

"Is Emile coming for you? You shall not go alone, that I swear!"

"Emile will send someone. They never let me go alone. If you will, you may do this. If I am not down at the stables at half-past eightto-morrow, will you find Emile and ask him to come to me. He will bethere doing my work. "

"And you will sleep and be well to-morrow? To-morrow you will rideagain, and there will be the applause. "

Even as he spoke he knew his words were foolishness. The feverishskin, dry lips and eyes that were like burning holes in the thin ovalface were signs and tokens enough for the most unseeing of men. AndVardri had suffered sufficiently himself to be able to recognisegenuine illness. 

She slipped from his arms. 

The little dreary laugh made him shiver. 

"_Mille remerciments, mon camarade_. I'm a failure, and failures arebest left alone. _C'est ainsi que la vie_!"

 * * * * * *

Hers was the sole fiasco in an otherwise successful performance. 

The final spectacle was a lurid representation of the destruction ofSodom and Gomorrah. 

This species of scriptural tableaux was frequently given, and wasgreatly to the taste of the spectators. 

Such scenes were regularly presented in the theatres and heartilyenjoyed by the superstitious and devout populace, who found in themnothing incongruous or repulsive to their piety. 

In this particular display the Manager had excelled himself, andachieved above all things a most vivid realism. 

The gentleman who impersonated the patriarch Lot had a distinctlymodern air, and resembled a third-rate Anarchist in depressingcircumstances. 

He was dark and swarthy, and possessed a ferocious expression, and onthe whole suggested a caricature of Emile in his worst frame of mind. 

He appeared in company with his reluctant spouse, whom he dragged alongby the hand, she meanwhile obviously unwilling to leave the urbandelights of the Cities of the Plain for a pastoral and dull existencein the desert, and as she was several sizes larger than her husband, she seemed likely to get the best of the encounter. 

She was the same fat Englishwoman who had driven Arithelli's horses inthe chariot. She was by no means young, she had applied her rouge witha lavish hand, and her golden wig was an outrage. Her airs and graceswere those of a well-fed operatic soprano. 

She advanced in jerks, she clutched at her plump anatomy and she rolledher eyes appealingly at the gallery, which responded with delightedyells. 

In her train came a small flock of dejected-looking, but real sheep, which were seemingly inspired by sufficient intelligence to wish toavoid the coming catastrophe. 

The city (or cities) was represented by coarsely-painted scenery, and, owing to some defect in the perspective, appeared to be only a few feetfrom the travellers, though doubtless intended to fill the distanthorizon. 

The fleeing pair jerked slowly across the stage in time to subdued butbrassy music from the Hippodrome band, the sheep followed, and thunderand lightning were heard and seen. 

Flashes and bangs resounded, the doomed city rocked upon itsfoundations, and the audience joined in the uproar. 

Sacks full of flour descended from Heaven and burst, converting thefleshly Mrs. Lot into the traditional pillar of salt, and the house andthe curtain were brought down together. 

Restored to good-humour, the audience had forgotten the disgrace andfailure of their favourite _equestrienne_. 

CHAPTER XI

 "I am tired of tears and laughter And men that laugh and weep, Of what may come hereafter For men that sow and reap. I am weary of days and hours, Blown buds of barren flowers, Desires and dreams and powers, And everything but sleep. " SWINBURNE. 

If anyone had told Arithelli that she was in for a sharp attack ofdiphtheria, she would have felt surprised and not very muchenlightened. Her ignorance of everything connected with illness wassupreme, and since childhood she had had no recollection of medicineand doctors. Her parents indulged in theories on the subject ofcomplaints, the principal one being a large disbelief in theirexistence. To them anything unhealthy or ailing was an aversion, athing to be avoided rather than pitied. 

For accidents, sprains and breakages their pharmacopoeia suggested anddid not go beyond two ideas, --salt and water and Nature. 

The Oriental strain in her character helped her to endure where anordinary woman would have fussed, cried, or grumbled. At home if shehad had a fall or did not look her best she had been expected toconsider herself in disgrace, and to keep out of the way till such timeas she had completely recovered her looks and spirits. 

When she returned to her lodgings, it did not occur to her to rouse thelandlady and demand remedies or attentions. The walk home had been anightmare, and now she had all she wanted--solitude and the blesseddarkness. She threw off her dress and boots, and walked the room hourafter hour. She still heard the brazen band, and saw the flaminglights and her ears echoed to the dreadful sounds of hissing. Sometimes she had drunk feverishly of the very doubtful water againstwhich Emile had so often cautioned her. When it was nearly dawn shegave in, and lay huddled up on the bed, half-delirious with the painand feeling of suffocation. 

Two streets away, and in a room more squalid than her own, Vardri wasalso enduring his own private Purgatory. Hers was physical, hismental. That was all the difference. 

Long before half-past eight he was down at the stables and therereceived the dismissal he had fully expected, being ordered off thepremises by the head groom, who had received directions the nightbefore to give Vardri a week's wages, and turn him out of the placewithout delay. It was no use protesting. The Manager was not yetvisible, and even if he had been Vardri knew there was no appeal. 

There had been complaints about his negligence more than once, and ofcourse he had been missed on the previous evening. None of the"strappers" would have reported him, but one of the clowns, a Spaniardwith whom he had fought for ill-treating a horse, had seen him leavingthe vicinity of the dressing-rooms, and had carried the information toheadquarters. 

The informer had chosen his time well, and had found the Manager ragingover Arithelli's mishap, and ready to dismiss anyone with or withoutreason. 

Vardri turned his back on the place whistling defiance, and with hiscourage fallen below zero. He would have liked to say good-bye to thehorses, and to some of the men who were his friends. He had neverdisliked the actual work, and it was at the Hippodrome that he hadfirst met Arithelli. Her misfortune and his had come together. At anyother time it would not have been quite so bad. A few months ago hewould not have cared whether he lost his place or not. 

There had been nothing much in life then, and one could always find ashort way out of it _via_ the water or an overdose of something. 

But now the world was changed, and he craved for Life and the fulnessof Life, for he had tasted happiness and stood for a moment in theouter courts of the House of Love. He had no friends who could havehelped him, and no qualifications for earning his living at any othertrade or profession. He had begun life with a luxurious home, arefined and useless education, and the mind of a dreamer, an idealist. None of these things were valuable assets in his present career. 

Like Arithelli he spoke several languages more or less fluently, andlike her again possessed both understanding and a love of horses, butwhat avail were these things when he had neither money, references norinfluence, and as a further disadvantage he was known to be anassociate of the revolutionaries, and his tendency to consumption wouldkeep him out of many kinds of employment. 

He turned over the few coins in his hand. Just enough to keep him fora week and then--the deluge!

He waited, prowling up and down the street, impatiently until Emileappeared in the distance. 

A few minutes later, the two men were at the door of Arithelli'slodgings. The landlady met them on the stairs, hag-like in thedisarray of the early morning, and evidently terrified out of suchhumanity as she possessed by the fear of infection. She had gone upwith the early morning coffee and found Arithelli raving aloud andtearing at her throat. Her first thought had been to turn the girl outof doors, or, as she was obviously incapable of moving, to send for apriest and a nursing sister, and have her taken to the public hospital. A wholesome fear of Emile prevented her from giving utterance to thesecharitable impulses. 

She invoked every saint in the calendar, whose name she could remember, and crossed herself with automaton-like energy. 

She could not, she protested, be expected to nurse such a dangerouscase of fever as this undoubtedly was. There was her son, the adoredof her old age. _Santa Maria_! If he also were stricken!

Emile pushed her on one side. "I'll talk to you presently, " he said inher own dialect. "If you are going into hysterics with fright you'llcatch anything that is catching. If you behave sensibly you won't. "

The window was fully open and the green shutters thrown back, and thefierce sunlight streamed into Arithelli's room, which showed more thanits normal disorder. The tray with the _café complet_ was on the floorwhere the landlady had left it on her hasty stampede downstairs, half-a-dozen turquoise rings lay strewn over a little table, where theyhad been thrown when they were dragged off, boys' clothes trailed overthe back of one chair, and a blue skirt over another. The only orderlything visible was the immaculate row of fine kid boots, long, narrow, pearl-grey, tan and champagne-coloured. 

Arithelli lay on the big bed under the faded canopy. She had wrappedherself in a thin blue _peignoir_, and her face was half hidden intangled hair. The tumbled bed-clothes were pulled to one side anddragging on the dusty boards. She was quite unconscious of anyone'spresence, and moaned softly in a strangled fashion. 

The two men stood without speaking, and watched the writhing, restlessfigure. Vardri turned away first with a smothered exclamation. Wouldhe always be obliged to see her tortured in some way or another? TheFates were sending him more than any man could bear to look upon. 

"What are you going to do?" he said roughly in French, "I can't standseeing this!"

Emile showed no signs of surprise at the other's manifest anxiety, possibly because his own was as deep, though his method of expressingit was different. He felt helpless, and, being a man, resented thefeeling, so by consequence his always rugged manner became even moreunpleasant than usual. 

"Well, " he rejoined, "what can you expect in this filthy place? Thisstreet isn't so bad, but of course she has so often been down in thoseslums in the Parelelo. The Calle de Pescadores alone is enough to giveanyone a fever. I think Sobrenski has made a point of sending her downevery poisonous street in the place. Ireland's a clean country, yousee, compared with this, so she hasn't much chance, and as she starvesherself half the time that won't make things any better. "

"She must have some woman to look after her. I suppose the landladyhere will be no good?"

"Not unless you pay her. --Who's going to do that?"

"There's Estelle. "

"Estelle!" Emile exploded a fierce Russian oath. "Do you want _more_hysterics?" Vardri was tramping up and down the room with thenoiseless agility of an animal, his fingers mechanically at work at acigarette. 

"She must have a doctor too. Isn't there an English doctor here?"

"Probably. Do you propose to pay him too?"

The dryly sarcastic voice, the practical question brought Vardri downfrom the clouds to the hard facts of life. Illnesses and doctors wereexpensive things. He had no money, and Emile very little. 

"I'll get a _Soeur de Charité_ from one of the convents. She'll comefor nothing. Nursing is their work. I was--I mean I'm a Catholic. She's a Catholic, too, isn't she?"

"No, she hates them. She was educated in a convent, where as far as Ican gather from her own account she acquired more learning than piety. Under the present circumstances I can only suggest the horse-doctor. "

"What's the use of--?"

"I believe he began by doctoring human beings, but like the rest of usout here, he is a little under a cloud. He prefers animals now. Theydon't tell tales. Human beings do. Besides, he's English, or rather, Irish. Better go and tell him to come up. You know his rooms. Tellhim it's infectious, and he can bring up a few cigarettes for me if hefeels generous. Don't trouble about your _Soeur de Charité_. I'll seethat the woman here makes herself useful. "

Vardri flung himself out of the room and down the rickety stairs atbreakneck speed, thankful beyond measure for the relief of action. 

Emile subsided into a chair and smoked furiously and meditated upon theuntoward situation. Being of a practical turn of mind he began to makecalculations. Vardri had told him briefly of how Arithelli had failedin the trick-riding, fallen off her horse, and been hissed out of thering. The loss of popularity might mean the end of her career. In anycase he could see she was desperately ill, and there was small chanceof her being about under three weeks, and even then she would not beable to work at once. Meanwhile they had exactly two pounds a week tolive upon. 

Truly women added to the complications of life! He might borrow money, but that was a thing to be resorted to only in the last extremity. Most of the members of his Circle were as poor as himself or poorer. They were all bound together by the tie of brotherhood, and no onewould have grudged or refused a loan, but Emile scrupled to borrow fromthose who were in greater privation than himself. 

Sobrenski was fairly well off, but he lived like an ascetic and gaveeverything to the Cause; besides, Sobrenski was out of the question. To appeal to him on Arithelli's behalf would only be to give him achance for refusal and a jeer at female conspirators. 

Her turquoise rings Emile collected from the table, and put them intohis pocket; her collar of turquoises he rescued from the floor, whereit had fallen when she took off her bodice. The jewels could all beturned into the money they needed so badly. Of course she had notsaved a single _peseta_. Emile had the handling of her salary, and heknew that anything left over from the expenses of food and lodging wentin clothes and her particular vanity, dainty boots. 

She was lavishly generous to the Hippodrome staff, and there was alwaysa certain tribute claimed from all its adherents by the Cause. 

He did not hunt further for valuables. If there was either money orjewellery in Arithelli's possession it was sure to be found in quite aconspicuous place. 

The varied life of the city surged to and fro beneath the window, thevaried noises floated up into the room, and under the faded red brocadecurtains, Arithelli turned from side to side and moaned with closedeyes. A seller of fruit passed, crying his wares. 

Emile went down into the street and bought a couple of oranges, andsqueezed the juice into the cup that had been destined for the coffee. 

He had not the least idea as to what particular malady Arithelli haddeveloped, but he knew that fever and delirium always went together, and that with fever there is invariably thirst. He lifted her up andpushed the pillow higher to relieve her breathing, but he could hardlydo more than moisten her parched and bitten lips. Then he "tidied" thebed with masculine pulls and jerks till it was even more untidy thanbefore, and went back to his chair. There was nothing more to be donefor her in the way of alleviation till the doctor came. 

He took up a book, and tried to shut his ears and distract histhoughts. As he stared unseeingly at the printed pages, there suddenlyflashed into his brain the name of Count Vladimir, the owner of "_TheWitch_. " Here was the very man to whom he could confidently apply forhelp in the present difficulties, for the Russian had made it hisbusiness in life to bestow his wealth in assisting the revolutionaries. Emile decided that he would write tomorrow, when he had acquiredcertain particulars as to the address he wanted. 

Fatalité had done good work for the Cause, he argued, therefore letthose who supported the organisation keep her till she was able to workagain. 

The next task he would have to undertake would be that of bullying orbribing the landlady into a promise to undertake at least some of theduties of a sick-room. The rest of the nursing he proposed to dohimself. He grinned as he lit another evil-smelling cigarette, at thethought of Vardri's proposal. 

He possessed an artistic sense of the fitness of things, and thesuggested _Soeur de Charité_ appealed to him as being quite out of thepicture. Besides Arithelli had no respect for priests or nuns; Emileremembered her inimitable descriptions of the spying "Children ofMary, " and she should not be worried with either if he could help it. 

Yes, certainly the incapable old landlady would be preferable to awhite-capped _religeuse_, for the latter, though not likely by virtueof her training to be scared by the physical atmosphere, wouldundoubtedly be appalled by the mental and moral one. Most likely shewould take advantage of Arithelli's weakness to persuade her of thedanger of her present way of living. The Church of Rome is never slowat seizing the chance of making a convert, and the power of the Churchin Spain is a byword. 

Though Emile had a profound scorn for conventions, he had at one timehad his place among that class of human beings that calls itself"Society, " and he knew its rules and ways as he despised itshypocrisies. He could look at Arithelli's position quite judicially, and as an outsider. The world, religious and otherwise, wouldcertainly not give her the benefit of the doubt. 

She was young, she was possessed of a weird and haunting beauty, shehad no women friends, no relations, and no companions but a set oflaw-breakers, all of whom were men. No one would believe that she wasuntouched, unawakened, that she had been treated as a boy, and herwomanhood not so much respected as ignored. If anyone put the wrongideas into her head, Emile reflected, it was sure to be one of her ownsex. 

Having matured his plans he descended to the kitchen regions, manufacturing impressive threats _en route_. 

Here an answer to his problem presented itself, or rather herself. Thelandlady had a niece who came in daily to assist in household matters, and take part in a duet of feminine gossip. 

She was a solid young woman of unmoved countenance, who was quiteprepared to nurse the ten plagues of Egypt, providing she receivedsufficient remuneration. She proposed to get married at the earliestopportunity and what Emile offered her would be of great assistance inproviding her bridal finery. 

The two came to an agreement rapidly, and Emile climbed the stairsagain, triumphant. 

He began to feel anxious about the doctor. Two hours had passed andthere was no sight of him. He might be out, or he might be drunk. Emile knew the little weakness of Michael Furness, and as Vardri hadnot returned it meant that he was still searching. 

At last the horse-doctor arrived, grunting and ruffling up his crest ofcurly black hair. He had a large heart by way of counterbalance to hismany failings, and he was interested in Arithelli, for he had comeacross her once or twice in the stables, and had heard variouspicturesque stories of her exploits. He might have been a success inhis own profession, but for the two temptations that beset everyIrishman--whisky and horses. 

He had left his practice in the city of Cork, as Emile had said, somewhat under a cloud, and had given up whisky for the _absinthe_ ofthe _cafés_, and had not regretted the exchange. He made hisexamination quickly, handling the girl with a surprising skill anddeftness, in spite of his big clumsy-looking hands. 

When he touched her she opened her eyes. 

"_Mais, où suis je_?" she murmured, painfully dragging out the words. Then followed Emile's name. 

The doctor laid her back gently, and stood holding one of her wrists. "She thinks it's you, Poleski! 'Tis diphtheria. A bad case, too. Shall want some looking afther. Who's seeing to her?"

"I am, " responded Emile, coolly. 

"The divil ye are!" The Irishman's long upper lip twitched humorously. "Well, treat her gintly then, me bhoy! You're wise to be smoking. Less chance of infection. I'll keep you company. " He produced acouple of thin black cigars, and handed one to Emile. 

"See, now, " Michael Furness added seriously, "I may as well be tellingyou the truth. Your little friend there hasn't a very big chance. She's been going to bits for some time. If it hadn't been this itwould have been something else. She's got a grand physique, so there'shope. If she's worse by to-morrow she ought to have an operation. Only I can't undertake it, ye see. There's the trouble. My hand isn'tas steady as it was, and I haven't the instruments. "

Emile nodded. He knew nothing of the operation of tracheotomy, andthough he spoke English well he found it difficult to follow Michael'ssoft, thick, County Cork speech. 

"She's a grand heap of a girl, isn't she?" continued that gentleman, regarding Arithelli with kindly eyes. He had all the Celt's love ofromance, and the ingrained reverence of the Irish Catholic for women. "This isn't the place for girls, at all, at all! And they tell meshe's from the old country. Will I be sending up one of the goodSisthers to see after her, and put things to rights a bit?"

For the second time that day Emile ungratefully rejected theministrations of the Church. He knew that no one else in Spain everthought of employing anyone but the religious orders as nurses, but hepreferred to arrange things in his own way and said so. 

"Ah, well then!" said Michael amiably, "give her something to drink ifshe wants it. That's all. I'll look in again this evening. She'llhave taken a turn then one way or the other. It's a quick thing, this. "

Arithelli's ministering angels left in each other's company. Michaeldrifted back to his favourite _café_, while Emile betook himself to theHippodrome to wage war with that amiable functionary, the Manager. Thestrife was both noisy and prolonged, and resulted in only a partialvictory for Emile. With many picturesque oaths the Manager accusedhimself of folly unspeakable in not dismissing Arithelli at once. 

She had a contract? Yes! But in it there was no allowance made forincompetence and non-appearance. It only stipulated that she should bepaid for doing her work. She had not done it, and moreover she hadrefused to practise. That he should be expected to continue to pay hera salary even of the smallest description while she lay in bed was amonstrous impertinence. 

Would he not have the trouble and expense of getting another artiste tofill her place? There must be an _equestrienne_ in the programme. Ifshe found herself taken back again to finish her time after thisillness or whatever it was, then she should be more than grateful, butas for paying salaries to _employés_ who did not work, why, did peopleconsider him an imbecile?

Emile shrugged and sneered at intervals throughout this tirade. He hadwisely begun by asking more than he knew he was at all likely to get, and was now obliged to be satisfied with the compromise. 

Disappointment followed his search for the whereabouts of CountVladimir. The owner of "_The Witch_" was expected back in Barcelona ina month or so, no one knew exactly when. Letters might be addressedPoste Restante, Corfu, for he was cruising in his phantom craft throughthose sapphire seas that lie round about the Ionian Islands. 

There was nothing to do but to write and wait. One piece of ill-luckwas following close upon another, and Emile felt that he needed all theconsolations that his cynical philosophy could afford. 

His anxiety on Arithelli's behalf was fast becoming an obsession. Whenshe had first come into his life he had wondered sometimes how shewould stand the late hours and all the hardships of a circus training, but after her one outburst she had never complained again. 

He thought the sea-trip had done her good. Of course she always lookedpale, but then that was her type. 

He had also been impressed with the unwonted seriousness of Michael, knowing that in spite of his erratic ways the doctor understood hiscraft. 

Emile's instinct prompted him vigorously to go back now and see how shewas getting on, but he dared not neglect the work of his Society. There were letters to be written, arrangements to be made, all theusual paraphernalia of intrigue to be kept going. 

He returned to his own rooms and began to write savagely, using all hiswill to expel from his brain the vision of the girl as he had seen herlast, semi-conscious, and yet with his name on her lips. 

Michael had promised to see her again at six o'clock. It would be timeenough if he also went then. Besides, the Cause came first always, andthere were many women in the world. His pen tore fiercely over thepaper as something whispered: "Women? Yes. But another Arithelli--?"

CHAPTER XII

"I have something more to think of than Love. All the women in theworld would not make me waste an hour. " SAYING OF NAPOLEON. 

The stolid niece blundered heavily about the room, doing things thatwere entirely unnecessary, and raising much dust. She was aconscientious person in her own way, and felt that she must get througha certain amount of work in return for the anticipated reward. 

She banged chairs and table about, folded up scattered clothes, investigated them with much interest, and fingered and re-arranged therow of boots with muttered ejaculations and covetous eyes. She hadpreviously contrived to get Arithelli into a night dress, had brushedher hair back and plaited it, and pulled the green shutters together tokeep out the midday glare. 

As she looked at the livid face patched with scarlet against the coarselinen, Maria began to feel a little perturbed. Something in theatmosphere of the room had penetrated even the brick wall of herstolidity. She hoped the two Señors would soon return and relieve herof the responsibility of her charge. 

The stillness oppressed her, for Arithelli had ceased her moaning andmuttering for a merciful stupor. 

As the hours went on the fever increased, and the horrible fungus inher throat spread with an appalling rapidity. 

As Michael Furness had prophesied, the crisis would soon be reached, and she had everything save youth against her in the fight for life. 

Maria crossed herself perfunctorily and mumbled a few prayers. Doubtless the Señora was like all the English, a heretic, andtherefore, according to the comfortable tenets of the Roman faith, eternally damned, but a little prayer would do no harm, and would becounted to herself as an act of charity. 

That ceremony over, more mundane considerations engrossed her mind. She could smell the pungent odour of the _olla podrida_, or nationalstew, insinuating itself through the half-open door, and she knew thatif she were not present at the meal, there would be more than onehungry mouth ready to devour her share. 

She drew a breath of relief as she marched heavily downstairs to themore congenial surroundings of the kitchen. She had done her duty. Señor Poleski had not told her to stay in the room all the time he wasaway, and she could easily be back again before he came in. 

Michael was the first to appear, almost aggressively sober, andcarrying a small wooden box. His interest in his case was as muchhuman as professional, and instead of wasting the afternoon, after hisusual custom, loafing and drinking, he had gone, after one modest glassof the rough _Val de Peñas_, to search in out-of-the-way streets for acertain herbalist of repute. 

This was an aged Spanish Jew, unclean and cadaverous, with patriarchalgrey beard and piercing eyes, a man renowned for his marvellous curesamong the peasantry. 

He was regarded more or less as a wizard, though his wizardry consistedsolely in a knowledge of natural remedies, and the exercise of a powerwhich would have been described at the Paris Salpêtriére as hypnoticsuggestion. By the aid of this he was able to inspire his patientswith the faith so necessary to a successful treatment. 

Michael was not fettered in any way by the ordinary conventions of apractitioner. He had neither drugs nor instruments of his ownwherewith to effect a cure on ordinary lines, and what he had seen ofherbalists in Spain had inspired him with a vast respect for thesimplicity and success of their methods. The wooden box contained aquantity of leaves which, steeped in scalding water, and applied to thepatient's throat, possessed the power of reducing the inflammation anddrawing out the poison through the pores of the skin. Of theirefficacy Michael entertained not the slightest doubt. 

He walked straight to the bed, and glanced at Arithelli's throat, nowalmost covered with white patches of membrane. There was no time towaste if she was to be saved from the ghastliness of slow suffocation. 

He went to the head of the stairs and yelled lustily for Maria, whom hecommanded to produce boiling water immediately, thus further adding tothe reputation of the mad English for haste and unreasonableness. 

Then he took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and began busily toclear a space on the table, on which he emptied the contents of the box. 

All his movements had suddenly become alert and energetic. The joy ofthe true physician, the healer, had awakened in him at the prospect ofa duel with Death, and he was no longer merely the slouching, good-natured wastrel who doctored horses at the Hippodrome. 

He possessed for the moment the dignity of a leader, of the master of asituation. He smiled to himself as he moved about humming a verse of"Let Ireland remember, " and swept away a _débris_ of books, a rougepot, some dead flowers, and a large over-trimmed hat. 

"Shure 'tis back in the surgery again I am, " he told himself, while hislean, ugly face beamed with satisfaction. 

No one who knew Michael Furness had ever suspected the regret by whichhe was for ever haunted, regret at the loss of his profession. Hisrollicking manner made it impossible to believe him capable of anydepth of feeling, and he had a trick of talking least about the thingsfor which he cared most. The failing that banned him from his work wasan inherited one. He suffered for the sins of his fathers, for theindulgences of many generations of hard riding, hard living, recklesshot-blooded Celts. He was too old to reform now, he would say. Perhaps later on he would be "making his soul"; in the meantime hedrifted. 

Emile, Maria and the boiling water all made their entrée together. Theeyes of the former travelled first of all to the bed and then to theheap of vegetation. 

"_Qu 'est-ce que c'est que ca_?" he demanded. "She is better, eh?"

"No, she's worse, " answered Michael. He seized upon the leaves andbegan to bundle them into the steaming basin. 

"We shouldn't have been gone so long. What's this did ye say, Poleski?Well, 'tis the only thing I can do for her. After I left you I wentand got these. They're great believers in herbs in this counthry, andby the light of what I have seen, so am I. The poor people never useanything else, and I've seen some fine cures. It's unprofessional, butit's giving her a chance and as I told you I can't operate. " Hewithdrew his fingers hurriedly. 

"Faith, that jade with the dark eyes knew what she was doing when shemade this water hot! They're ready now, and I'll want a piece of stuffto lay them on. Find me a piece of the colleen's finery, something oldthat she won't be wanting to use any more. "

He pronounced the last two words as "ANNIE MOORE, " and would have beenfurious if the fact had been pointed out to him, for like all Irishmenhe would never admit the possession of a brogue. 

A pale blue silk scarf was found, and ruthlessly utilised as a bandage. Then Emile lifted the inert figure, while the doctor wound it round herthroat and fastened it securely. 

"Lift her higher, man, " he adjured Emile. 

"There's only one pillow?--Then use this. " He rolled up his coat, andput it behind her head. 

"We've done all we can now, and must just wait till this begins todraw. It will make her uncomfortable, and we must watch that shedoesn't pull it off. Give me a cigarette if ye have one, Poleski. 'Tis hot work this. "

He sat down on the bed and took up Arithelli's thin wrist. In hisshirt sleeves, with his hair well on end, and his robust voice verylittle subdued below its usual pitch, Michael did not convey theimpression that he was capable of taking either Life or Death in aserious spirit. He talked on gaily, in no way depressed by hisunsympathetic audience, telling tales of his own escapades in thematter of fighting and love-making, of wild midnight steeplechasesridden across unknown country, and the delights of the fair town by theriver Lee. 

Once he stopped talking for a few minutes to boil some more water onthe stove that Arithelli sometimes used for making coffee, and to renewthe application of leaves. The fact that his patient was in exactlythe same condition of stupor, and had not stirred, did not discourageMichael's optimistic views of her recovery. 

"Ye must give it time, me bhoy, " he told Emile. "There's no hurry inSpain, ye know, with anything. Be careful that ye watch her and keepher hands off her throat. She'll not be lying so quiet presently. "

Emile growled out an inaudible response. He was in a smoulderingcondition of wrath and impatience. Reserved and limited of words as hehimself always was, and now rendered savage by anxiety, he found itimpossible to understand the other man's mercurial temperament. Bythis time he was without hope, and certainly without faith in eitherMichael or his remedies. 

The doctor having skilfully extracted his crumpled outer garment fromunder Arithelli's shoulders, regretfully prepared to depart. He wasobliged to be somewhere about the premises of the Hippodrome duringevery performance in case of accident to any of the animals, andcareless as he was where his own benefit was concerned, he hadsufficient wisdom to be always within call. 

When he had vanished Emile walked to the window, and threw open the nowuseless shutters. He guessed instinctively that Arithelli needed moreair, and he had himself begun to find the temperature almostunbearable, for the building was lofty, and the room they were in nearthe roof. He rested his folded arms upon the sill and leaned his headand shoulders far out. 

The house stood at a corner, and while the side of it was in a smallstreet, the front overlooked one of the many wide and beautiful_paséos_, with which the city abounded. 

A little breeze borne of the incoming tide in the harbour came sweepingalong, and its coolness stirred him into fresh vitality. 

It was the hour of pleasure, when the inhabitants threw off theirsun-begotten sloth and thronged the _cafés_ and public gardens andpromenades. 

On the Rambla, once the bed of a river, the military bands played waltzmusic, and the favourite operas, and hot blood moved faster to theunfailing enchantment of the Habernera, and the newest works ofMassenet and Charpentier. 

It was now dark, and the stars blazed down upon the never-resting city, with its sinister record of outrages and crimes, and its charm whichwas as the alluring of some wild gypsy queen. 

Men fleeing from the justice or vengeance of their own country couldfind here a City of Refuge. Here the tide of life ran swiftly, andchurches and cruelty walked hand in hand, and Hate trod close upon theheels of Love. 

Here no man's life was safe, for from time to time an epidemic of bombthrowing would break out. Infernal machines would be hurled in anapparently purposeless fashion wherever there was a large gathering ofpeople in street or square. A few policemen, soldiers, or onlookerswould be killed or mutilated, and a panic created, but few arrests wereever made. The whole of the Press would unite to lift up its voice inan indignant appeal to the Government, and then everything would beforgotten till the next explosion. People in Barcelona lived from dayto day and accepted lawlessness as a matter of course. 

Emile's own particular circle had no hand in these promiscuousdestructions of life. Their own attempts were invariably wellorganised and directed towards some definite end. They did not destroylife for mere wanton cruelty, and their victims were marked out andhunted down with an accurate aim. 

It suddenly occurred to Emile that during the last few months he hadlooked upon Barcelona with a changed vision. He had always seen herbeauties and hated them, as a man may hate the fair body of a despisedmistress, while he yet sees it fair. Now the thought that he might atany time, and at a few days' notice, be forced to leave the place, struck him with a feeling of blankness and desolation. 

The sense of exile was almost gone, the nostalgia for his own land nolonger keen. Had he turned traitor to his own country, the country forwhose woes he was now suffering--?

There he had neither home, parents, friends nor lover. Here hepossessed at least interests. 

A rustling sound behind him made him turn quickly. In the gloom hecould only see the outline of a white moving figure. He groped for thematches, struck one and lit a candle. 

Arithelli sat upright in bed; she had pushed back the clothes, and herlong fingers were dragging at the blue scarf. It was knotted at theback under her plait of hair, and she had almost succeeded in looseningit. The fatal inertia was passed, and she was beside herself with heatand pain and the fight for breath. 

A couple of strides brought Emile to the bedside. He caught her handsbetween his own and drew them down. 

"Listen, Arithelli, " he said quietly. "You mustn't do that. This isto cure your throat. It may hurt you now, but to-morrow you will bebetter, _voyez-vous_?"

The girl writhed in his grasp, turning her head from side to side. Thewild eyes, the tense, quivering body, made Emile think of some forestanimal in a trap. 

The bandage had fallen from her throat and therefore was useless, andthe aromatic scent of the crushed herbs was pungent in the air. Heremembered Michael's injunction, "See that she keeps it on. It's heronly chance. "

She was still struggling frantically, and he needed both hands. For amoment he meditated tying her wrists together, but he decided to trustto his influence over her to make her do as he wished, she had alwaysobeyed him hitherto, and he knew that she was perfectly conscious now, and capable of understanding what he wanted. 

He set his teeth and tightened his grip, and spoke again in the samequiet voice. 

"Look at me! That's right. Put your hands down, and keep them so. You must not touch your throat. "

He held her eyes with his own as he spoke, and after a momentarystruggle and shrinking she grew quiet, and he felt her body relax. Hereyes closed and she sank down against the pillow, turning her facetowards him. 

"_Pauvre enfant_!" Emile muttered. 

He released her hands and they lay still, and she made no movement tohinder him as he re-adjusted the bandage. 

He stood looking down upon her. A vast compassion shone in the greyeyes, that she had only seen hard and penetrating. The gesture of muteabandonment, the ready compliance had appealed to his complex nature, which he kept hidden under an armour of coldness and cynicism. For aninstant his years of outlawry and poverty were blotted out and he hadgone back to the days in Russia when he had first come into hiskingdom, and had believed women faithful and their honour a thing onwhich to stake one's own. 

As sweet and yielding Marie Roumanoff had seemed when she had lain inhis arms. A few years hence if Arithelli did not succeed in breakingher neck in the ring, she would probably also make Paradise and Hellfor some man. 

He could see that the dangerous crisis was over. She would live andeventually go back to her work again. The swift intelligence, the witand charm of her--_À quoi bon_? She had been saved, and to what end?For a dangerous and toilsome profession, and, in secret, another andstill greater peril. 

Husband and children, and the average woman's uneventful, if happy, fate could never be hers. Her very beauty was of the type almostrepellent to the strictly normal and healthy man. 

She would no doubt have her hour of triumph, of passion. Some_connoisseur_ of beauty would purchase her as a rare jewel is bought tocatalogue among his treasures. 

In Paris she might achieve notoriety. Not now, perhaps, but later whenshe had developed into a woman and knew her own power. Paris loved allthings strange, and gave homage to the woman who was among her fellowsas the orchid among flowers. 

"_FATALITÉ_, " he had named her in jest. Truly a name to bringmisfortune to any woman. Her fate had been in his own hands a fewminutes ago. He could so easily have denied her her chance, her chanceof life. Perhaps the time might come when she would reproach him forhaving helped her to live. 

He thrust back the thought and stooped over her. 

"_Mon enfant_, do you want anything to drink? You are thirsty, _n'estce pas_?"

"Yes. And Emile--you won't--go away--yet?"

"_Ma foi_, no! Drink this and go to sleep. "

He was the Emile of every-day life once more, brusque, blunt andpractical. As he turned away to put the glass back on the table, hewas debating whether it would not be wise to call up Maria. A womanwould understand better what to do for another woman. He knew thatArithelli would never ask for anything under any circumstances. 

He had taught her too well his own depressing theory that life "mostlyconsisted of putting up with things, " and in practice thereof the pupilhad outshone her master. 

The rigid tension of her arms and hands as they lay on the coverlettold of her effort for composure, and he noticed for the first timethat beautiful as the latter still were in shape and colour, one of thenails was broken, and the finger tips had spread and widened. Whenthere had been meetings up in the hills at night she had always beenleft to see to the unharnessing of the horses and mules, and thesedisfigurements were the result of her struggles with saddle-girths andstraps. Her work was usually well done, and if it did not happen to besatisfactory, she came in for the united grumbles of the whole party. 

Emile bit into his cigarette as his eyes caught the discoloured linesof Sobrenski's sign-manual on her wrist. 

It was entirely through him, Emile, that she had in the first placejoined the league of conspirators, and this was one of the results. Sobrenski's judgment had been more far-seeing than his own. One girlin a roomful of fanatics, (he was one himself, but that did not makeany difference, ) would naturally stand a very poor chance if she wasfoolish enough to oppose them. 

With masculine thoughtlessness Emile had set the candle close besidethe bed, where it flared full into Arithelli's eyes. 

They were wide open now. The look of desperation had faded, and therewas in them only the appeal of one human being to another for help andsympathy. 

"_Eh, bien_, Fatalité?"

She shifted her position wearily and stretched out her hands towardshim, murmuring, "_Je veux dormir_. "

If Emile had possessed either chloroform or any other narcotic he wouldat once have given it to her without much thought of the possibleconsequences. An inspiration seized him to use the power for soothingand alleviating provided by Nature. He knew that Arithelli would be aneasy subject for the exercise of animal magnetism, and her morbidcondition would make it even easier for him to send her to sleep. 

He moved away the candle, so as to leave her face in shadow, andleaning forward he laid his hand across her forehead and eyes, andbegan a series of regular and monotonous passes, always in a downwarddirection. Once he rested his thumbs lightly on her eyeballs, remaining so for a few seconds, while his will went out to her, biddingher sleep and find unconsciousness. 

CHAPTER XIII

 "There is a woman at the beginning of all great things. " LAMARTINE. 

The whizzing rush and discordant scream of the electric trams, the sunwarm upon his face, aroused Emile from a restless, fitful sleep of afew hours. The street cries had begun to swell into a volume of sound, and at the earliest dawn the whole place teemed with stir and life. There was no hour in all the night in which Barcelona really slept. Some of the shops did not close before midnight, and people werecontinually passing through the Rambla, and entering and leaving the_posadas_, which were open for the sale of wine and bread soon afterthree o'clock in the morning. 

Emile yawned and stretched, and pulled himself up slowly from the chairby the open window in which he had fallen asleep. He was cramped andstiff from his uncomfortable position. Anxiety and strain had deepenedthe lines on his face, and his eyes were dull and sunken. He lookedless hard, less alert, and altogether more human and approachable. 

A glance at the bed assured him that Arithelli was still asleep and inexactly the same attitude as he had left her. Though her sleep was nota natural one, at least it was better than drugs, and he had given hera respite, a time of forgetfulness. In a few minutes he would have toarouse her again to more pain and discomfort, and the inevitableweariness of convalescence. He stood inhaling the wonderful soft airand gathering up his energies to face the work of another day. Arithelli's affairs had to be put straight, and Vardri provided for insome way. He did not in the least know how this was all to beaccomplished, and at present the problems of the immediate futureseemed likely to prove a little difficult. 

He was not by nature optimistic, and the events of the last few dayshad made him even less so than ordinary. He felt that he must go backto his rooms, and finish out his _siesta_ before he could work out anymore plans. 

Arithelli awoke at once when he touched her and called her name, butbefore she had realised where she was Emile was half way downstairs insearch of Maria. 

As it happened it was Sunday morning, and being at least outwardlydevout, the damsel was just on the point of starting for an early Mass, and was arrayed in her church-going uniform of black gown and _velo_, and armed with missal and rosary. 

Her round eyes widened and her round mouth grew sulky when she heardthat she was expected to go upstairs without further delay and attendto Arithelli. Juan would be waiting for her outside the church door, Maria reflected, and perhaps if she did not come he would seek others. There was Dolores, of the cigarette factory, for example. The EnglishSeñora could surely wait a few minutes. Her expression, and herobvious unwillingness, supplied Emile with material for cynicalreflections upon the working value of religion. He did not trouble tocommunicate his views to Maria, but merely gave orders andinstructions. His tone and manner were convincing. Like all the restof her sex Maria respected a man who knew what he wanted, and showedthat he intended to get it. 

Emile made his way into the cool, shady Rambla, where a double avenueof plane trees met overhead, and where a grateful darkness could alwaysbe found even at mid-day. On either side of the promenade were thefinest shops, the gaiest _cafés_. A band of students passed him, waving a scarlet flag and shouting a revolutionary _chanson_ of themost fiery description. Emile scowled angrily. He had not the leastsympathy with these childish exhibitions of defiance, which heconsidered utterly futile and a great waste of time. They did harm tothe serious aims and intentions of the Anarchist community, and wereoften the means of getting quite the wrong people arrested. 

At the Flower Market (La Rambla de las Flores) he paused to look at theheaped roses, gorgeous against the grey stones. Daily they werebrought there in thousands, dew-drenched and fresh from the gardens ofSária. He took up a loose handful from the piled mass of sweetness andlaid it down again. 

Red roses were not for Fatalité. They would not suit her, and she hadgood reason to loathe the colour that was symbolical of blood andsacrifice. He chose instead a sheaf of lilies, long-stalked andheavily scented, and despatched them in the care of a picturesque_gamin_. Sobrenski and the others would certainly have considered himhopelessly mad if they had known. It was many years since he had sentflowers to a woman. His present life did not encourage littlecourtesies and graceful actions. It was in the natural course ofevents that all the comrades should help one another in every possibleway, but none of them made any virtue out of it. It was all done inthe most matter-of-fact way possible. As he had told Arithelli whenthey had talked up at Montserrat, one only kissed the hands of a MarieSpiridonova. And he was sending bouquets as to some _mondaine_ of thevanished world and of his youth. 

He shrugged and walked slowly on. In passing the house where MichaelFurness lodged, he stopped to leave a message as to Arithelli'scondition, and the advisability of another visit. 

When "_The Witch_" touched at Corfu for letters Count Vladimir foundamong them one that twisted afresh the thread of two destinies--his ownand that of a woman. His companion had still the same features andcolouring of the boy who had sung at night under the stars in theharbour of Barcelona. Pauline Souvaroff still sang through the hoursbetween dusk and dawn, but her disguise had been discarded, and nowsoft skirts trailed as she passed, and the cropped fair hair had grownand twisted into little rings. Her secret had been no secret to Emile, though Arithelli with her trick of taking everything for granted hadnever guessed that Paul, the singer, was other than the boy heprofessed to be. Besides the two women had never talked togetheralone, and seldom even seen each other by daylight, for Pauline hadsought no one's company. 

There was for her but one being in the world, and when she could not bewith the man she worshipped she was content to be with her thoughts anddreams. 

At first she had, like many another Russian woman, yearned to make anoblation of herself in the service of her horror-ridden country, butwith the coming of love she had put aside all thoughts of vengeance. The Cause was identified for her with the person of her lover. Shetoiled willingly at it still, but from entirely different motives. Hisinterests were hers, and while he worked for the revolutionary party, so also must she. 

Pauline Souvaroff had loved much and given freely. All that shepossessed of beauty and charm, her whole body and soul she had laid atthe feet of the man at whose lightest word she flushed and paled, andon whom she looked with soft, adoring eyes. She lived in dreams, alife of drugged content in which there was neither past nor future. 

In all the Brotherhood no one could be considered a free agent, and theordering of no man's life was in his own hands. The private actions ofeach member were almost as well known as his public ones, for each manspied systematically upon his companions. If the devotion of twopeople to one another seemed likely to outrival their devotion to theCause, then separation came swiftly. Nothing would be said, noaccusations made, but each would receive orders that sent them inopposite directions. The supporters of the Red Flag movement werealways particularly ingenious in arranging affairs to suit themselves. An Anarchist could form no lasting ties. Some time in the future therewas always separation to be faced. 

It was in Vladimir's power to settle matters in his own way by ignoringEmile's letter, and remaining where he was in enjoyment of the presentidyll. As long as they kept out to sea they were safe. But he hadpledged his word to answer any summons and to give his help, and withhim, as with all men, love came only second to his work. Emile hadalso explained Vardri's position, and it would be impossible to adjustanything without being on the spot. 

He read the letter over again, slowly and carefully. It hinted andsuggested more than it had said. Emile had just come from an interviewwith Sobrenski, and there had been a talk of an entire re-organizationof the band. Some of the members would be required to carry on thepropaganda in other countries, Russia, for example. They all knew whatthat meant--!

As he climbed the ladder by the yacht's side, and swung himself ontothe deck, the girl ran up to him with outstretched hands, her whiteskirts fluttering behind her in the wind. She was as incapable ofdisguising her feelings as a child, and she was a joyous pagan in herhappiness. 

Vladimir slipped his hand under the warm round arm. "Have I been long, _petite_? Come and walk up and down. I want to talk to you. "

"You have found letters, _mon ami_?" Pauline asked carelessly. 

"From Poleski. Yes. I'm afraid they are rather important ones. Weshall have to talk them over later on. "

"When you like. Vladimir, do you remember the girl Monsieur Poleskibrought on board once for a few days. I never knew her real name. Shealways looked so ill and miserable. Do you remember?"

"It is about this very girl that he has written. "

Pauline looked up quickly. "She is dead?"

"No! No! I suppose you think that because she always looked such atragedy. However, she is very ill, out of danger now, but of coursenot able to ride--she was in the Hippodrome, you know--and apparentlyshe has no money, so one must do something for them. Poleski hasbarely enough for two, especially under these circumstances. "

"I am sorry, " Pauline said gently. "I remember how she used to sit allday and look at the sea. Monsieur Poleski left her too much alone, andalways spoke so roughly, but I think he loved her. "

Vladimir gave a short laugh. 

"You're wrong there, child. No, I'm sure that's not the case withPoleski. "

"But she loves him?"

"Possibly! She always seemed to me uncanny with those extraordinaryeyes, and that voice. Poleski has certainly failed to educate her asregards taste in clothes. You saw how she was dressed when she came onboard--!"

Half an hour later the anchor was up, and they were cutting through thewhite-crested waves. The girl pointed to a green headland on the leftthat rose suddenly and overhung the water like a sentinel on guard. 

"I have been watching that all the morning in the distance, and I couldthink of nothing but the Winged Victory in the Louvre. You rememberhow she stands on a rough-hewn pedestal at the head of the marblestaircase, and she is all alone against a dull red background. And asone looks one goes back all those centuries, and sees her as she was onthe day the Greeks set her up to celebrate their great sea-victory. Itmust have all looked just as it does to-day, those centuries ago in theIsland of Samothrace. There was a strong wind blowing, and the wavesmet and raced and leapt together, and the sky was the same wonderfulcolour that it is now, and there were wild birds hovering and screaminground her. "

"What will you say to me, when I take you away from all this, --when wehave to go back to Barcelona?"

"But I shall go with you?" The blue eyes were searching his face, andthere was fear as well as a question in them. 

"Do you suppose I shall leave you here alone, child?" He hated himselffor the evasive answer. 

He turned her thoughts to other things, bidding her talk of those daysthey had spent together in Paris. She had named it Paradise, and toher it had been indeed a place of enchantment, for she saw it for thefirst time, and Vladimir was always with her. 

She had seen its treasures of art, and abandoned herself to its glamourwith the enthusiasm and the freshness of a child. 

She had looked out of place in the artificial atmosphere of theboulevards, among the gas-lit _cafés_, dazzling shop-windows, _flâneurs_ and gaily dressed women. A man who wrote poetry, andstarved on what he received for his verses in the Quartier Latin, hadstood beside her for a few moments in the Rue de Rivoli, and had gonehome to his garret inspired to produce some lines in which he comparedher to the delicate narcissus blooms that died so quickly in the flowersellers' baskets. 

Together she and Vladimir had strolled among the wonders of the Louvre, he critical and unmoved, but indulgent and gratified at her pleasure asat the pleasure of a child. 

Pauline had never been able to express what she felt. She could onlyworship dumbly before the changeless unfading beauty of these relics ofthe fairy-cities, of Athens, and Rome, and Alexandria. She had lovedthe Greek marbles best. The weird shapes in the Corridor of Pan, theglorious torso of the Venus Accroupie with the two deep lines in herside that make her more human and alive than any other Venus, moredivine even than the Milo, faultless in her "serpentining beauty roundson rounds, " serene and gracious in the shadow of her crimson-hungalcove. 

And Vladimir was wise, for he allowed her to dream, and did not showher more than he could help of modern Paris. 

From there they had gone to Brussels, then to Vienna, and last, andmost beautiful of all, Buda-Pesth, the city among the hills. They hadseen it first of all as Buda-Pesth should be seen, at night, hangingbetween earth and sky, and with her million lights sparkling againstthe soft darkness of the surrounding hills. Pauline's eyes had neverbecome satiated with the sight of beautiful things. 

Perhaps, as she had told Vladimir, it was her love for him that hadgiven her this gift of clear-seeing. Without love she might haveallowed herself to be blindfolded as many other women are, by ambition, or money, or intellect. 

CHAPTER XIV

 "La vie est vaine, Un peu d'amour, Un peu de haine, Et puis bon jour. "

In the process of Arithelli's convalescence, comedy fought for place withtragedy. 

For the first time in her life she felt irritable, and inclined togrumble, and her racked nerves made the lonely hours appear doubly longand lonely. 

Day after day, each one seemingly more unending than the last, the sunpoured into her room, and the dust and litter accumulated in all fourcorners, and she lay and gazed at the hideous meandering pattern of thestained wall-paper, and the cracks and blistering paint on the door. Thenights were less terrible, for the darkness veiled all sordid details, and there was a star-lit patch of sky visible through the open window. 

The attendance she received could only be described as casual. NeitherEmile nor Maria possessed one idea on the subject of hygiene betweenthem. The methods of the former were, as might be expected, a littlecrude, and Maria combined a similar failing with a vast ignorance. Moreover, she was not original. At the beginning of Arithelli's illnesspineapple juice had seemed to Maria a happy inspiration, and shecontinued to provide it daily. What was good to drink on Sunday, sheargued, must also be good on Monday. 

Arithelli's throat had healed quickly, but the depression and weaknessclung to her persistently. She fought it and was ashamed of it, true toher Spartan traditions, but was forced to realise that it was not in herown power to hurry her return to the world and work. 

Michael Furness, who was much elated by the success of the Jewishherbalist's remedy, continued his treatment on the same lines, giving hervarious tisanes of leaves and flowers, which if they tasted unpleasantwere at least harmless. He had grown fond of his patient, and she alwayslooked for his visits with pleasure. He treated her with a genuine, almost fatherly kindness, and they were drawn together by the kin feelingof race, so strong among all Celts. In many respects Michael was notideal as a medical attendant. 

He smoked vile tobacco, --he dropped some things and knocked over others, he shaved apparently only on _festas_, and if he happened to arrive latein the day his speech was thick and his manner excitable. 

Upon one occasion Arithelli had complained that her mane of untended hairmade her uncomfortably hot, and Michael brought out a pocket knife, clubbed it all together in his hand like a horse's tail, and obliginglyoffered to relieve her by cutting it off. Emile had arrived only just intime to prevent the holocaust, and the two men exchanged fiery words forthe next ten minutes. 

Another day, prompted by a desire to amuse her, Michael introduced intoher room a fat mongrel puppy with disproportionate legs and an alarmedexpression. His wish to provide her with what he was pleased to call a"divarsion" was, like many of his other good intentions, not entirelysuccessful. He had deposited the excited animal on the bed, and in thecourse of its frantic gambols it overbalanced and fell sprawling to thefloor on its back. The ancient canopied bed was high, and the puppy wasfrightened as well as hurt, and lifted up its voice in anguished yells. When Michael had rescued it, and put it outside the door and finishedlaughing, he came back to find Arithelli weeping helplessly with her faceburied in the pillow. His alarmed suggestion that he should fetch Emilehelped her to recover more quickly than any amount of sympathy could havedone. 

Sometimes there were other visitors. The grooms and strappers from theHippodrome came often to enquire, and Estelle, forbidden by the Managerto come at all on account of infection, sat on the stairs and showeredeffusive speeches in a high-pitched voice through the open door. 

Arithelli had sent no word of her illness to her parents in London. Sheknew their views on the subject of complaints. They would consider thewhole thing due to imagination, there would be unpleasant letters, and itwas perfectly certain that they would send no assistance in the shape ofmoney. Emile had wished to write, but she had begged him not to do so, and for once he had yielded to what he called her "whims. "

From the scraps of information she had received from time to time itappeared that the uncomfortable _ménage_ of her kindred had become evenmore disorganised. Her father had turned for consolation to the whiskyof his country, her mother spent whole days in bed reading, and weavingfutile dreams of a recovered fortune, and Isobel and Valerie grew tallerand hungrier, and fought and wrangled after the manner of Hooligans. Lazy and shiftless, they envied Arithelli the life she had chosen, buthad neither the pluck nor the brains necessary to emulate her example. 

Emile's manner had troubled her of late, for he had been strangelybad-tempered and variable in his moods. She had become more or lessaccustomed to his eccentricities of behaviour and speech, but this wassomething different, indefinable. One day he would be extraordinarilykind and considerate, the next almost brutal, either hardly speaking atall, or else finding fault with everything she said and did. 

She often felt a presentiment that he had something important to tellher, but he would come and go without imparting any news, and, as always, she did not worry him with questions as many women would have done. 

She wondered if he were feeling harassed over "_les affairespolitiques_, " or whether he was afraid that the Manager's small stock ofpatience would be exhausted before she was able to appear in the ringagain, and that he would cancel her contract. If that happened she feltthat the end of all things would have indeed arrived. She could notstruggle against the Fates any longer, obviously she could not returnhome, and it was not fair that Emile should continue to keep her. 

He came in one evening about eight o'clock to find her up for the firsttime since her illness, and sitting on the edge of the bed draped in thelong blue cloak she used for covering her circus attire. 

Her hair was parted over her ears, and divided into two long sleek braidsdrawn forward and falling over her shoulders, the ends resting on her lap. 

She looked up, as he entered, with the haunting sea-green eyes thatshowed larger than ever in contrast to her hollowed cheeks. Something inher pose, in the arrangement of her hair, reminded Emile vividly of herfirst morning in Barcelona, when he had come in early in the morning tofind her dazed with sleep. He remembered also how she had asked him torepeat his remarks, and how carelessly nonchalant had been her manner. 

"You look like a witch sitting crouched up there, Fatalité, " he snapped. "What's the matter? You don't seem very cheerful. "

"I don't feel very cheerful, " the girl responded. She spoke with gravedeliberation, and without moving a muscle. Emile grunted and sat down. 

"There has been another explosion of bombs on the Rambla, " he said. "Amarket woman killed and two work people injured--I believe one has sincedied. Of course a got-up affair of the Government. They hope by doingthis sort of thing often enough to make the populace take vengeance onus. "

"Then the Anarchists didn't do it?"

"My dear Fatalité, we don't blow up harmless people simply _pour passerle temps_. I've told you that before, and being inside the movementyourself you ought to know. It is a favourite trick of the officials toexcite public feeling against us. They have been doing it now for thelast three years, letting off bombs in various parts of the city. Theytake care always to choose the most frequented places and to kill someonewho doesn't matter, and then all the Republican journals have fourcolumns of indignation with large head-lines, 'LATEST ANARCHIST OUTRAGE. 'They like to get their exploits well talked about. Everything seems tobe against us now. Sobrenski will have it that there is treachery insideour circle as well as outside. You know whom he suspects?"

"No. "

"Vardri. "

"That is my fault, " Arithelli said quietly. "Sobrenski has felt likethat since the night Vardri made a scene about my being lowered down fromthe window. He just stood up for me because I'm a woman. I'm only amachine to the rest of you. "

She spoke without a touch of resentment. It was purely a statement offact. 

"Ah, that's just the point. The feminine side of you is exactly what wedon't want. One Félise Rivaz is enough, most of us think. Try and keepthe elfish boy you were when you arrived. It will be less trouble, Fatalité, _ma chère_. With the other thing there are alwayscomplications. No, I'm not accusing you of falling in love with Vardri. I only say, be careful. Even an elf-child can develop suddenly into awoman once she arrives at a knowledge of the fact that there is a manready to make love to her. Perhaps you do not know it yourself, but youhave changed lately. You are losing your fearlessness, yourindifference. I have watched you sometimes when you have not known, andhave seen your eyes soften, your face change. You started when I spokejust now. "

"How did you learn things about women? From books?"

"Books? _Ma foi_, no! I liked them well enough at one time, when Ihadn't studied _la vie_. Now they're _fâde_. "

Arithelli was silent for a little while. She knew only too well thatEmile had spoken the truth, had put into blunt words what to herself wasonly a vague, half-formed idea. Her illness had been Vardri's goldenharvest time, for it had given him the chance of being often alone withher. He had read to her, waited upon her, served her with the utmostchivalry and devotion. He had made of her a Madonna, a goddess, she whowas fair game for all other men in Barcelona. 

Emile's voice broke in upon her meditations. 

"You shouldn't worry, Fatalité. It's not becoming. Have a cigarette tomake yourself a little distraction. "

She shook her head. 

"No, thank you, Emile. I never wanted to smoke, and any way it would notgive me a distraction to-night. "

"Then what are you worrying about?"

"I've only been wondering what will be the end of me. "

"What has made you suddenly become so anxious about your end?" Emilelooked at her keenly. 

The wide eyes raised to his were tragedy incarnate. The long nervousfingers were tightly locked together. 

"I'm a coward to-night, " the soft hoarse voice went on. "I've nevergrumbled before, have I, Emile? I seem to have suddenly realised howhopeless everything looks for me in the future. I've had time enough tothink it all out since I've been lying in bed. When I first came here Ithought I was going to do all sorts of wonderful things, but now I seethat this life leads to nothing, and I may go on being just a circusrider for years. When I get well and finish out this contract I shallhave to try and get another engagement in Paris or Vienna. The EnglishConsul and all the other men wait to see me come out, and throw meflowers and rings, but when they see me driving with you in the Paséo deGracia, they look the other way, especially if they are with their wivesand families. They like 'ARITHELLI OF THE HIPPODROME' in her properplace, --the ring. Gas and glare, paint and glitter! That is my life. And they always hope that I shall fall off. I can feel it. It's theRoman arena all over again. For a long time before I had that accident Ididn't know how to get through the rehearsals. I nearly fell off two orthree times, but there was no one there to see. The more I practised themore cold I got, and I used to have horrible shivering fits. It's soqueer. I don't believe I'm made like other people. Estelle gets hot andscarlet when she practises. "

"Poor little child!"

"Why are you so nice to me? You've never said anything like that before. "

"Because if when you first came here I had begun to pity you it wouldhave made you realise your position sooner than need be. You were likeone in a dream. It was not my place to awaken you. I left that forLife, '_la vie_' that you were so anxious to experience. You madeyourself '_Chateaux en Espagne_. ' We all do that at some time or other. "

"Nobody really cares what becomes of me except--" she broke off thesentence and continued steadily. "My people don't mind whether I am hereor not. They won't like it if I come back a failure. "

In his heart Emile cursed the Fates. Her awakening had been a completeone. At first novelty and excitement had served as mercifulanaesthetics, but they could not last for ever. 

He was not in love with her, he still told himself, but he would missher. Women like the Roumanoff were the women to whom men made passionatelove, but Arithelli was unique. She had become part of his life inBarcelona. Their lives had touched and mingled till it was impossible tobelieve that he had only known her for a few short months. A futurewithout her would be one without interest. For her he could see nofuture. She would have to go to the devil some way or anothereventually, and there would be plenty of people ready and willing toprovide her with an escort. 

He threw away his cigarette, and came across the room to her, and hishands fell heavily upon her shoulders. 

"Look here, Fatalité, " he said roughly; "we thought you were dying alittle while ago, and I helped to fight for your life, and all the time, at the back of my brain I wished you were dead. Yes, you needn't look sohorrified. " He gave her a fierce shake. "I hoped to see you in yourcoffin. Can't you understand, Fatalité? No, of course you can't, andyou think me a brute. One of these days perhaps you will thinkdifferently. Probably you imagine I don't care for you, but if I didn'tshould I mind whether you were alive or dead? You've always been sayingthat you feel something is going to happen. It seems you are right. There have been several unexpected developments during the last few days. It is most likely that I may be chosen to go back to Russia withdespatches to one of the secret societies there. Here I cannot bearrested, there I can. Of course it means Siberia--eventually. That'sonly what we all expect. "

"Then I shall be here alone. "

"Yes, and there's no future for a woman in this vile place. You know theproverb they have, 'Can any good thing come out of Barcelona?' Yourlooks are against you too. "

"There's always the river. "

"Then when the time comes choose that--if you still have the courage. You've been _bonne camarade_ to me, Fatalité. The men you will meetlater on may not want that. "

CHAPTER XV

 "I kiss you and the world begins to fade. " W. B. YEATS. 

Count Vladimir and Emile met and consulted together, the immediateresult of the interview being that Vardri was offered the post ofprivate secretary to the former. Emile had gone out leaving themtogether, and Vladimir had hardly finished speaking when he foundhimself faced by an unexpected situation. 

"I accept with pleasure, " Vardri said, "but on one condition--that itmeans my remaining in Barcelona. "

Vladimir hesitated. "Well, I had not contemplated that. Naturally onerequires one's secretary to be--"

"I understand, Monsieur. I hope you will not consider me ungrateful, but there is a reason. "

"It's a woman?"

Vardri bowed gravely. "Exactly, Monsieur. It's a woman. "

"You are risking a great deal for her. Poleski has told me somethingof your circumstances, and it appears that if you do not get someappointment very soon, you will starve. "

Vardri straightened himself, throwing back his head with acharacteristic gesture. He looked the older man in the eyes, his ownalight and eloquent under finely drawn brows. 

"That's as it may be! I'll take my chance of work. In any case Icannot leave Barcelona. Of course, I regret greatly that it isimpossible for me to fall in with your arrangements. "

Vladimir smiled and shrugged. He knew the type with which he had todeal. Quixotic and generous to the verge of folly, the type that willsacrifice itself without reserve for an illusion, an ideal; the typethat filled monasteries, and Siberian prisons, and made a jest for halfthe world. Such men were valuable to the Cause, because they gaveungrudgingly, and never counted cost. The Russian was a man ofaffairs, cautious, cynical and given to analysis, and he was also astudent of human nature. He was moreover interested in the unknownwoman. 

If he had been told that she was Arithelli the circus-rider, who hadsat silently upon the deck of his yacht dressed in gaudy raiment, andindifferent almost to stupidity, then his smile would have beencontemptuous instead of tolerant. He was interested too in the unknownwoman's champion. Something in Vardri's attitude of courteous defianceappealed to him by the law that will attract strongly one man's mind toanother, diverse in every way. He could see that Vardri was plainlyconsumptive, and that the disease was in its advanced stages. Evenwith the aid of good food and an easier life he could not last morethan a year or two, so one might as well make things a little moresmooth for him during the time. 

"I see you have the illusions of youth, my friend, " he said carelessly. "I trust they may remain long unbroken. Myself I am sorry to havelived beyond the age when they content one. Sit down and talk to me. "He motioned Vardri towards a chair. "Well, since you have refused toentertain my plan, we must think of something else. I'm at presentwriting a series of articles on '_Militarism in France_, ' and shouldlike to have them translated for publication in an English journal. You speak the language well, better even than Poleski, for you have abetter accent. I have been a good deal in London and I notice thedifference. I suppose you also write it easily?"

"Yes, I had an English tutor. "

"Good! Then you will undertake this work, and you shall fix the priceof payment. I'm not in the least afraid of your asking more than Icare to give. You are the type that gets rid of money, not the typethat acquires it. Also I will give you an introduction which willenable you to get on the staff of _Le Combat_. They want another manthere who is a good linguist, as there is a great deal ofcorrespondence with other countries. As I have an interest in thepaper, you may consider it settled. No, don't thank me. Your thanksare due to--a woman. She is unknown to me, but perhaps that is thereason I--I also owe you something, Monsieur Vardri. Your example hasmade me feel young again. "

A week later Vardri went swinging quickly down the Calle San Antonio, on his way to Emile's rooms. He was in exuberant spirits, and whistledas he walked keeping step to the dancing gaiety of '_La petiteTonquinoise_. ' His headgear, which vied in picturesque disorder withEmile's historical sombrero, was pushed to the back of his head, exposing his thick, unruly hair, and over one ear, Spanish fashion, hehad stuck a carnation. 

There was more money in his pocket than he had possessed since his daysof luxury in the Austrian chateau, and for him the sun was shining in ametaphorical as well as a literal sense. During the last few days hehad been happier than he could have believed possible. He felt inbetter health, for he had been able to go to bed at a reasonable time, and though he missed the horses and the free life of the Hippodrome, and found the work of a newspaper office somewhat trying, there wereshorter hours and other advantages. 

He had also the joy of knowing that Arithelli was almost well again. She had not been out yet, but Michael Furness had declared her to bepractically recovered. 

One day Vardri hoped to take her along the sea-front towards the oldquarter of the town, where the fishermen and sailors lived, and whereshe could sit on the stone parapet and look across the harbour, and letthe sea-air blow strength and vitality into her. 

After all he told himself, life was good even if one were a vagabond. Life with adventure, a little money, and love. 

He burst open the door of Emile's sitting-room, and entered headlong. The sun-blinds were all drawn, making everything appear pitch darkafter the blinding glare of the streets. 

"I want some matches, Poleski! By luck, I've got some cigarettes. Onenever has both matches and cigarettes at the same time. " He had cometo a dead stop and stood staring. 

"Fatalité! Fatalité! The gods are kind for once! If only I had knownyou were here sooner. "

The half-full box of cigarettes descended to the floor, and itscontents went in all directions, and he was kneeling beside her chairand holding both her hands. It was Arithelli not "Fatalité" who smiledback at him. The little mask-like face changed and grew soft till shelooked more a girl, less an embodied tragedy. Vardri's wild spiritswere infectious, and, as on the night of the Hippodrome fiasco, Youthcalled and Love made answer. 

"_Mon ami_, I am so glad you have come. "

"Is this the first time you have been out? Who said you could get up?The doctor?"

"No, it was Emile. "

Vardri nodded towards the communicating door of the bedroom. "Poleskiis here then?"

"No, and he doesn't know I'm here. He has gone to Sária and will notbe back till late. I was horribly irritable this morning, so he thinksI'm all right now. " A ripple of amusement broke her voice as theireyes met. 

"My sweet, you must ask me to believe some other little _histoire_. "

"Oh! but it's true. You should have heard us! I knew that it wasfunny afterwards, but there was no one to laugh with at the time. Itwas about that dreadful old coat of Emile's. He threw it on my bed, and--I can't help being a Jewess, can I? and I so loathe dust anddirt, and I said so. Emile was furious. 'Very well, ' he said. 'Ifyou are strong enough to grumble, you are strong enough to get up. ' Sowhen he had gone I dressed and came here. I was so glad to get awayfrom that room. "

"Not as glad as I am to see you here. And I've heard you laugh, Fatalité. You're a little girl today. "

"I have moods, dear. I shall depress you sometimes. "

Vardri smiled scornfully, and slid down to the floor, his head restingagainst her knee. "_Je suis bien content_! What cool hands you have, and how still you keep. No other woman in the world was ever sorestful. You love to be quiet, don't you? I know you better to-daythan I ever did. You were always in the wrong atmosphere at theHippodrome. "

"And I have to go back to it, " the girl said under her breath. "And Imay be hissed again. You will not be there now, and we shall miss you. I and Don Juan and Cavaliero, and El Rey, and Don Quixote. Some of thegrooms are horrible, and the animals get so badly treated. "

"It seems to me that everything gets badly treated here, " Vardrimuttered. "Women and horses, it's all the same. Don't let us talkabout it. It drives me mad to think, I shan't be able to be near you. I was some use to you there. "

He jumped up and began to move about the room collecting the scatteredcigarettes. 

"Shall I play to you, _mon ange_? I suppose the piano hasn't beentuned yet. " He struck a few notes, and made a rueful grimace. "It'sworse than ever. "

"I'm afraid it never will be tuned now that I've been ill and caused somuch expense. Emile always says he will go without cigarettes toafford it, and I say I will go without powder, but neither of us keepour heroic resolutions, and the piano gets worse and worse. "

Vardri shut down the lid with a bang. 

"Well, anyway it doesn't matter, " he said, "I don't want to play or doanything; I just want to be with you. "

"Bring up a chair, and sit and smoke, _mon camarade_. " She held outher hand with a gesture of invitation, and Vardri took it and kissedit, and went back to his former position at her feet. 

"Shall I read to you?" he asked. "Ah! I'd forgotten there wassomething I wanted to tell you. I found a poem the other day, alove-song of De Musset. Do you know that you lived in this very cityyears ago, Fatalité, and he saw you and loved you? How else could hehave written this?

 "_Avez-vous vu en Barcelone, Une Andalouse au sein bruni, Pâle comme un beau soir d'Autômne, C'est ma maitresse, ma lionne, La Marchesa d'Amagui. _"

Arithelli listened, her eyes dilating, and a little flame of colourcreeping up under the magnolia skin that made her likeness to the womanof the poem. Her awakening senses thrilled to the eager voice, theriotous challenging words:

 "_J'ai fait bien de chansons pour elle_. "

He broke off abruptly and continued: "I hate all the rest of it. Thewoman isn't like you, further on, and the lover laughs at his ownpassion, and the whole thing jars. That first verse haunted me fordays after I'd read it. "--The sentence was finished by a convulsive fitof coughing, which he vainly tried to stifle. 

"This is the first time to-day, " he gasped, between the paroxysms. "I'm quite well really. It's the cigarette. They often have thateffect. Don't look so worried, or I shall think you hate me for beinga nuisance. "

"If you talk so foolishly I shall go. "

She made an attempt to rise, but Vardri caught at her skirts. "Youwon't go! You don't want to make me worse, do you? Think how sorryyou'll be if I cough and worry you all the evening!"

"Can't I get you anything? If only I were not so stupid about illness. Don't try to talk if it makes you worse. "

"I won't--if you'll stay. "

To Arithelli caresses did not come easily, but during the last fewweeks she had learnt many things. She stroked the dark head thatrested against her knee, wondering how it was that she had never beforenoticed till to-day how feverishly brilliant Vardri's eyes were, andhow his skin burnt. She had often heard him coughing before, but hehad always gone away and left her when an attack came on, with somelaughing excuse about the horrible noise he made. After a while heshifted his position, and smiled up at her. 

"You're getting tired, Fatalité!"

"No. Tell me, have you anything important to do to-night?"

"No, dear, and if I had I shouldn't do it. Do you feel well enough tocome out and have dinner with me somewhere? I'll take you to someplace where it's quiet. "

"Why not let us stay here all the evening, and have supper together?"Arithelli suggested. "We'll take Emile's things. He loves cooking_cochonneries_, and there is sure to be a _quelque chose_ somewhere inthe cupboard. "

Vardri scrambled to his feet. "_Bon_! Sit still, and I'll go and_acheter les_--things! We'll leave Emile's _cochonneries_ alone. I'mrich now, so we will have luxuries. "

"Yes, and I'll hunt for plates and dishes, and wash them properly (notlike the Gentiles do) while you go and _acheter les_--things!"Arithelli mocked. "What a dreadful mixture of languages we all use! Iused to speak German quite well when I was at the convent, but now Ihave forgotten nearly all of it. This place is bad for both one'sFrench and English, and Emile says that when I try and speak Spanish itsounds like someone sawing wood. "

Vardri went out still coughing, and came back flushed and excitable, laden with various untidy parcels, from which some of the contents wereprotruding. Long rolls, the materials for a salad, a _pâté_, flowers, and an enormous cluster of grapes. They pledged each other in theyellow wine of the country, and presently Vardri set about themanufacture of what he inaccurately described as Turkish coffee. Thatthe result of his efforts was half cold and evil-tasting mattered notto either of them. 

Arithelli's red hair was crowned with vine leaves that he had strippedfrom the grape-cluster and twisted into a Bacchante wreath. She leanther elbow on the table, resting her chin upon her hand. Her eyesglowed jewel-like, almost the same colour as her garland. The flame oflove had melted into warmth her statue-like coldness, and given her theone thing she had lacked--expression. Yet the mystery, the charm thatsurrounded her clung to her even when she appeared most womanly. Tothe boy lover gazing with devouring eyes she seemed that night morethan a woman. He thought of the tales he had heard as a child from thepeasants on winter nights in his own country. Tales of the forests andlegends of the Hartz Mountains, of lonely places haunted by nixies andwood maidens, fairy shapes with streaming hair and vaporous robes, seeing which a man would become for ever after mad with longing, anddesire no mortal woman. 

Arithelli's long limbs appeared nymphlike in her plain bluehigh-waisted gown of Emile's choosing, that had no superfluous bow ortrimming, and left free her beauty of outline. She possessed nojewellery now wherewith to deck herself, and there was no trace ofartificial red on face and lips. 

The candles on the table flickered to and fro in the draught from theopen window and she shivered in the midst of some laughing speech andglanced over her shoulder at the door behind her. 

Vardri, reading her thoughts, said, "You're afraid of something, dear, what is it?"

"Nothing, at least I thought someone was listening, was coming in. Weare always talking of spies till one gets absurdly nervous and imaginesall sorts of foolish things. I have never said so to anyone else, butthere is always the feeling of being watched. It is so difficult toknow who is for and who against us, and so easy to give evidencewithout meaning to be a traitor. Just before I got ill, Sobrenski sentme to a little newspaper shop down in the Parelelo quarter. I was toask if they sold '_Le Flambeau_. ' The man looked at me hard and askedif there was any connection between that journal and the one publishedat number 27 Calle de Pescadores. The sun must have made me feelstupid, and I answered _Yes_, without thinking. I had taken it forgranted that the man was one of us, and then I knew suddenly that hewasn't. "

Vardri bent forward across the table. "Did you tell anyone what youhad said?"

"Not Sobrenski; I told Emile. He looked me up and down, and saidsomething that I couldn't hear, and then, 'I thought you could holdyour tongue, Fatalité. It seems, after all, you are a woman andcan't!' and then he walked out of the room. Vardri, did you ever feelas I do when you first began to work for the Cause? Perhaps one getsused to it in the end and doesn't care. "

"Yes, " the boy answered between his teeth, "Yes! One gets used to it. Dear, your hands are trembling. Do you think anyone can hurt you whileI'm here? You are nervous because you've been ill, that's all. Thisis the first time you've been out and you are overtired. I'll take youback soon. You were all right a few minutes ago. You thing of moods!"

She tried to smile, "I warned you, _mon ami_. "

"I know. It wasn't any use. That wreath makes you look like thestatue of Ariadne in Rome. "

"I wish you would talk to me about yourself. "

"Myself!" Vardri shrugged expressively, "_Ma foi_!"

"Tell me what made you join the Cause. "

"Because of a man I believed in. You have heard of Guerchouni who diedearly in the year? There was a great funeral in Paris. It was in allthe papers. "

Arithelli nodded, "Yes, I heard the men talking about it at one of themeetings. I wasn't interested enough to listen then. Was he--?"

"He was one of our greatest leaders. His death meant something to me, because it was really through him that I joined the Red Flag. He had alife sentence in Eastern Siberia and he escaped from there and got toAmerica. For some time none of us knew exactly where he was, and thenwe heard rumours that he was dangerously ill at Geneva. Then came newsof his death and his funeral in Paris. His friends had decided tobring the body there, so that all the comrades might be present, forthere are many anarchists in Paris. They gave him a guard of honour ofRussian students, men and women surrounding the coffin with linkedhands, and there were hundreds of red roses and red carnations, thoughit was in the winter--there had been snow on the ground a few daysbefore. There was a crown of thorns from those who had been hiscompanions in prison, and the canopy of the hearse was a red flag. Ifonly I could have been there to do him homage!

"There are all sorts of wild stories about his escape from Siberia. Isuppose he bewitched the jailers as he bewitched other men. He was thefirst man I ever heard speak about the Cause. He came to Vienna andheld meetings for the propaganda and collected enormous crowds. I hadjust begun to take life seriously then, to think about things and tohate injustice. 

"My father drank and wasted money and treated his servants brutally. My mother was dead, and when she was alive she was an invalid, andcould do nothing. Most of the people I knew seemed to think the serfsno better than animals. I remember how sometimes when we were startingoff in the early morning for a boar hunt in the forest, they would comebegging and whining round the horses' heels. 

"They seldom got anything except a kick or a curse. They lookedscarcely human, yet it was ourselves who were the brutes really. 

"Well, Guerchouni spoke and I went and listened to him. A friend withwhom I had gone to the meetings gave me an introduction to him. I wasmad on the Cause long before the interview was over. He was a manthat! If he had looked at me twice, I would have walked through flamesto please him. Oh, I wasn't the only one! We all felt like that moreor less with Guerchouni. I couldn't describe him. He was not a tallman, but he carried himself well, and he was dark and pale withwonderful blazing eyes. One knew him at once, and talked as if one hadknown him for years. 

"Of course I accepted all his theories and doctrines except two. Idon't believe in '_L'Union fibre_. ' (They all do, you know, or nearlyall) and I never was an atheist. 

"A Catholic and an Anarchist! It sounds impossible, doesn't it, but"--he flushed boyishly--"I believe in _Le bon Dieu_, and the _unionlibre_ is hard on women. Yes, I adored Guerchouni. He worked day andnight, he feared nothing, he did impossibilities himself and he made usdo impossibilities. "

"He was like Sobrenski. "

"Yes, he was like Sobrenski in some ways. He will be a loss to theCause. "

For a few moments there was silence, and then Arithelli spoke. "Tellme one more thing. Now we are alone, we can speak the truth to eachother, you and I. Vardri, do you still care for the Cause--in the sameway you did before?" She whispered the question fearfully, yet knowingwell what the answer must be. 

"I don't feel the same about it since I have known you. "

"I have not tried to make you a traitor, have I? Sobrenski alwayssuspects me of that. "

"My sweet, you have done nothing. I love you, therefore I must feeldifferently about the Cause. Why? Because I'm afraid of it for you. Because these men have no consideration for you as a woman, becausethey always make you take the greatest risks. It is always so in thiswork. Look what happens to the women in Russia. When there is apolitical 'Execution' there, nine times out of ten it is a woman whothrows the bomb. Look at the things they have done lately. At theprinting office we see all the anarchist journals, and the comrades getnews privately. The men do little in risking their lives compared tothe women, and some of them are so young. An article in '_Les tempsNouveaux_' of last week said that, '_beside the men these young girlsare as artistes beside artisans_. ' The last case was Sophia Pervesky. She was arrested for being in charge of a secret printing-press. Before the police seized her she nearly found time to put her lightedcigarette down on a pile of explosives. They wounded her in twoplaces, threw her down, and stamped on her injuries. Then they tookher to the hospital and kept her there till she had recovered. Shewaited two months for death and then they brought her out one morningin the dawn and hanged her. 

"'You shall see how a Russian woman dies, ' she told them as she ran upthe ladder and flung herself into space. 

"You women shame us with your courage. Now every time I hear of athing like that, I think of you. You may have to run some great riskhere for a caprice of Sobrenski's. "

"Vardri, Vardri, I wonder what will be the end of it all?"

CHAPTER XVI

The walls of the Hippodrome were no longer adorned with gaudy posterswhereon flared a travestied portrait of "_The beautiful Englishequestrienne_. " No longer for Arithelli were showered roses, thetribute of head-lines in the weekly journals, and the welcome of manyvoices. She had been absent for nearly a month, therefore she might aswell have been dead as far as the Spanish public was concerned. 

The Manager had known this and had been careful to provide his patronswith a new toy, who had come, even as Arithelli herself, from Paris. This was a female contortionist with a serpent's grace, and a serpent'sflat head, and wicked slit eyes. She had proved a success, so he couldafford to exult, and Estelle dangled in triumph a new pair of diamondearrings. He had lost nothing and the once famous Arithelli, the"_She-wolf_" who had been mad enough to defy him, was now simply one ofthe crowd. Her name did not appear on the programme. She was not evenMadame Mignonne now, but merely a unit among the many other women whowere grouped in the grand spectacle, or a rider in a procession withtwenty others. He had reduced her salary to a third of what it hadbeen formerly, and every Saturday she was required to assist with thecorrespondence and weekly accounts. If she did not like thisarrangement, he explained, she could fight out the terms of hercontract in the courts. Doubtless she had a great opinion of her owncapabilities, but as she could see for herself her place had beeneasily filled. The world was large, and there were plenty ofwomen--_sacré_, too many!

As usual he was disappointed in the effect of his remarks. Whether hersilence meant indifference or sheer stupidity he was never quite sure. As Arithelli had no vanity the loss of her position meant little to her. 

The loss of a private dressing-room meant a great deal. It was arefined torture to her to be herded among the other women, with theirnoise and quarrelling and coarse jokes. She found changes too. Herfriend the toothless lion had succumbed to old age, several of thehelpers had been changed, and Vardri was no longer near at hand to lifther on to her horse and wait to help her dismount. Whenever he couldget away from Vladimir and the newspaper office, he was among thespectators, and their thoughts and glances met across the wide arena'sspace. Emile did not come regularly now though he took care there wasalways someone sent to bring her home. 

Since the night of the alarms in the Calle de Pescadores, theBrotherhood had decided in council that they must change their place ofmeeting, at any rate for a time, and that no part of the city itselfcould be considered safe for the purposes of a meeting place. 

They must keep to the hut up in the mountains. This had been seldomused on account of the difficulty in getting there, and the waste oftime involved by the distance. In all respects it was safer. If theywere surprised it was not likely they would all be caught, for in theopen there was always a chance of escape. The distance and lonelysituation were all in their favour. In a small house in a narrowstreet they were like trapped animals. 

The custom was to start at midnight on the outskirts of the town, collecting by degrees, and when they were well on their way thecavalcade joined together and formed into Indian file. 

Some were on horseback and some on the more sure-footed mules. 

Not one among the conspirators could ride with the exception of Vardriand Emile, and the knowledge of the art possessed by the latter waspoor enough. 

The steeds of the general company went at whatever pace they chose andin what direction they saw fit, and occasionally two or three gotwedged together in some narrow place and there was an interlude ofkicking and squealing. 

Then "Fatalité" was called to the rescue as being the only one amongthem capable of managing horseflesh. 

When not required in her office of peacemaker she was sent on in frontas guide to the procession, dressed in her boy's disguise and astridethe most vicious of the mules. These excursions meant less rest forher than ever for the party seldom returned till five o'clock in themorning. 

Emile had told her that she must get her sleep up in the hut. 

"You have two hours to yourself, " he said. "You can't sleep up there?Nonsense! Make up your mind to do it and then you will. "

The building in question, which was more like an outhouse than anythingelse, she had christened, "The Black Hole of Calcutta. " The upperpart, which was approached by a ladder as a loft would be, was used asa meeting-room, while the ground floor became a temporary stable forthe horses and mules, of which she was left in charge. Since the scenein that upper room in the Calle de Pescadores she had put herselfoutside all consideration; and Sobrenski now excluded her from all workother than the merest drudgery. Vardri was also kept undersurveillance. It was felt by all that in some quarter treachery lurkedas yet undiscovered, and every man suspected his comrades. There wereindications that someone, hitherto a sworn ally of the Cause, hadturned spy and sold certain information to the authorities. 

Even Sobrenski's iron nerves were stretched to breaking point. 

The rest tried to drown anxiety in _absinthe_, and all grew daily moremorose and uncertain of temper. 

The first sensation came in the shape of a rumour that Count Vladimir'scompanion, Pauline Souvaroff, had disappeared. 

Only three people knew that she had vanished utterly and completely onthe same day that she had received a communication from the leader. The note had been brought to her by Vladimir himself. He could guessat its contents, but Pauline had revealed nothing. 

Two hours afterwards when he went on shore she was shut up in hercabin, and he had not interrupted her, thinking she was asleep. Whenhe returned, and found her door unlocked, and her cabin empty, asuspicion of the truth occurred to him. 

Everything was left in perfect order, but there was no letter, no wordof explanation. He questioned the crew, and heard that she had beenrowed to shore by two of them soon after he left. She had given themen orders not to wait, but to return at once to the yacht. For a weekVladimir hunted through street and slum. At the end of that time heknew that alive or dead he would never see Pauline Souvaroff again. The missive he had brought her from Sobrenski had probably meant ajourney for her to one of the great centres of the movement--Amsterdam, Geneva, or perhaps even London. 

Alphonse of Spain was now in England, having escaped two attempts uponhis life in Paris, and in his own capital. His every moment would bewatched and noted by the destroyers of monarchy. Probably she had beenchosen to obtain information, because women made better spies than men, and their movements were not so likely to be noticed by the police. Many a high official whose name was on the list of those condemned todeath by a revolutionary tribunal had been tracked from city to city byfemale agents. 

Yet, if she had been sent on such an errand, what reason could she havehad for going in secret, alone and without a word of farewell? He hadsupposed it impossible that she could have kept anything from him; ofcourse there must eventually be separation. He had warned her of that. And when it came he had expected scenes, tears and a frantic appeal. 

That she should vanish in silence was inconceivable. Perhaps she hadnot cared for him so much after all. In any case the episode had beena charming one, and to him no woman could ever have been more than anepisode. He had shown her some of the many beautiful things and placesof the world, and by her own words he had made her happy. Now theirplay time was over. He had his work and she hers. She had come intohis life as a piece of driftwood floats to shore on the edge of a wave, and gone out of it as noiselessly. 

Vladimir did not discuss his private affairs, so that among all theconspirators Emile alone knew, and it was Emile alone who guessed thetruth. 

CHAPTER XVII

 "Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse. "

For some days Arithelli had not seen Emile, and she had wondered. Since the night she had sat with Vardri in his room, he had scarcelyspoken to her except for a few moments on business matters. 

She thought he looked haggard and worried, and there was a change thatshe could not define in his manner towards her. She wondered if heknew about Vardri, if he thought she was deceiving him. 

She wanted to tell of this new, wonderful thing that had befallen her, but he had given her no chance, and she had begun to think that he didnot even take sufficient interest in her to care what she thought orfelt as long as she performed her allotted tasks and did not worry himwith complaints or questions. 

The feeling of a barrier between them troubled her vaguely, and she wasglad when she found him one night waiting for her outside the stagedoor. 

Half an hour later he was smoking a cigarette in her room while shebrushed her hair. 

They had been silent for some time, and both started when the door wasassaulted by a sudden thump, and the scarecrow-like visage of thedepressed landlady appeared in the opening. 

Having delivered herself of a small cardboard box, and a few grumblingcomments upon the indecent hours and ways of circus performers, shewithdrew, and Arithelli proceeded to cut the string and remove the lid. 

"I can't see what it is in this light, " she said; "Emile, may I havethe candle a little nearer? Flowers? No one sends me flowers now. But these are--"

Her voice broke and stopped. Emile, who had been on the alert from themoment of the landlady's entrance, sprang up and pulled the girl to oneside. A mysterious parcel at that hour of the night, too late for anypost. One might have guessed what it meant. 

"What is it?" he asked sharply. The answer was an incoherent one, andhe could see that she was paralysed with terror. 

The opening of the box had revealed a sinister-looking bouquet ofartificial black roses tied with blood-red ribbons. 

In Barcelona there are many strange and ingenious ways of conveyingdeath by explosives. A clock, a painted casket which might containbon-bons; a coffee-pot, a _casserole_--any apparently harmless andcommon utensil. 

A bunch of flowers was one of the most common mediums for a bomb. 

The Anarchist colours showed clearly that it must either have been sentby an enemy who had been formerly one of the band, and who was nowrevenging himself by an attempt to see his former associates "hoistwith their own petard, " or else it was an affair of the police. In anycase, supposing the thing to be harmless, it was a warning of danger. 

Emile's wits worked swiftly, and he was used to emergencies. He lookedround, and found a jug of water, and the floral tribute floatedharmlessly therein. As it did not sink at once he concluded that therewas no concealed bomb. Then he turned his attention to Arithelli, andgave her a vigorous shaking, which was probably, under thecircumstances, the best possible restorative. 

"You'll die more than once in imagination before your time comes, Fatalité. Probably the next parcel you receive will not need as muchinvestigation. "

She tried to smile. "I'm sorry! They looked so uncanny, and when Isaw red I thought--Emile, what does it all mean?"

"It means danger, my dear. It means that you are suspected. Youyourself best know whether the suspicion is deserved or not. Of courseit may be only one of the police tricks, but I don't think so. Anywaywhether it was charged or not it's safe enough now. Look in the boxand on the floor to see if there's any note or message. There isn't?_Eh bien_! I suppose they thought this would speak with sufficienteloquence. "

He fished the bedraggled bouquet out of the water and hung it like atrophy across Arithelli's mirror, which was a fetish of its owner andthe one valuable thing she now possessed. It had been the gift ofMichael Furness, who had bought it from the Jewish herbalist. It wasof antique silver gilt in oval shape, and rimmed with rough topaz setin silver, and was alleged by its former owner to have been theproperty of Agnès Sorél. Arithelli had often declared that in it shecould see visions as in a crystal. 

Over it Emile carefully arranged the flowers so that the stained redribbons hung limply across the polished surface. Then he sat downagain and lighted another cigarette. 

"You ought not to be afraid of this sort of thing, you know, " he said. "Sudden death is part of our business. In the oath we take we swear to'Slay or be slain, ' if by so doing we can advance the Cause one smallstep forward. "

She caught at her breast with a sudden gesture of passion. Death--could they talk and think of nothing else? And she was a womannow, not a weapon, and she wanted life. 

"You don't seem very enthusiastic, " the cold voice continued. "A fewmonths ago the dangerous side of the game was rather an attraction toyou than otherwise. Now you shrink and shiver at everything. You doyour work, yes, because, you can't help doing that, but is there anyheart in what you do?"

"None! Every day I live, I loathe it more!"

"Take care!"

"I'm past caring. When I came out here first I was a child playing ata new game. "

Emile's back was turned to her, and if his answering speech was brutal, it was because his conscience was awake and crying fiercely. He wouldnot be likely to make the mistake of interfering with people's lives asecond time. He had seen in her an instrument to be handled at will, and had charged himself with the burden of her destiny, and now hesupposed she was about to reproach him. 

"You are hysterical. That's the worst of women. They always are--moreor less. You had better go to bed, and not talk nonsense. If you werea child only a few months ago you are not too old to be treated as onenow. "

It hurt him more than it hurt her, but she would never know that. Hispulses hammered furiously as she dropped at his side with a soft rustleof garments. Her clasped hands rested on his knee; the strong, slenderhands that had grown rough with work. 

"Emile, " she whispered, "can't you see that I've altered? I'm a womannow. You said I should be one soon. I've wanted to tell you allalong, but I always hoped you had guessed. "

"Perhaps I did, but I preferred that you should tell me yourself. Andsince when have you become what you call 'a woman'? No, you needn'tanswer. When I knew that you and Vardri had been together in my rooms, I was certain I had not warned you without reason. "

"You knew before I did myself. "

"_Mon enfant_, I'm neither blind nor a fool. As they say in thiscountry, 'love and a cough cannot be hidden. ' I was sure about Vardri, but about you;--no, one couldn't say. When you came out here you werea sexless creature with a brain. It did not seem likely that you woulddevelop into the ordinary girl with a lover. "

It was the only way he could keep a hold upon himself, by keeping up apose of cynicism. The fragrance of her hair, the curved mouth so closeto his own, maddened him. He who could have been her lover had beenonly her guardian, her taskmaster. And now she was ready to giveherself to a boy, who thought life was a romance, and who wouldprobably sit at her feet reading poetry while they both starved. 

"You have been together often?"

Her head drooped. "Yes. I should have told you before. "

"What plans have you made? I suppose it will be the usual mad schemeof running away. I ought to betray you, of course, but--"

"We haven't arranged anything yet; there is plenty of time. "

"Plenty of time--Mon Dieu!" the man rasped out. "How like you, Fatalité! What a pair! Vardri always living _au clair de la lune_, and you half asleep, and full of illusions. _Les illusions sont leshirondelles_. How often have I told you that?"

"They make life possible, " Arithelli answered softly. 

Again the man stared and marvelled. Verily, here was another being whowas neither "Becky Sharp" nor "Fatalité. " The exultation, the triumphof one loved and desired, was hers for the moment. Who, seeing hernow, could have the heart to warn her of inevitable disillusion, thedoubts and fears, the clinging and the torments that are the heritageof all womenkind. 

He, too, had once dreamed foolish dreams. 

He gripped her by the shoulder and forced her to look at him. 

"Vardri is your lover? You shall answer me before I leave this room. "

She did not flinch, or blush, or look away. 

"I love him. "

Joy shone in her widely open eyes. Love hovered about her mouth, andthe passion that had stirred in him momentarily shrank back ashamed. He pushed back her hair with a rough caress. 

"It's all right, _ma chère_. You needn't be afraid. I shall not behere to advise you soon, and all I have to say now is, never imagineyourself secure for an instant. Sobrenski is bound to discover this inthe course of time, and he has seen this sort of thing before, whichwill not make him any more merciful. He has watched human nature longenough to know that where there is what you would call love, peoplewant to create, they no longer want to destroy. If, as you say, youhave made no plans, then make them. And now you'd better go to bed, unless you want to look more like a ghost than usual to-morrow. "

As he went out into the moonlit street Emile knew that he had taken thefirst step on his _Via Crucis_. He did not call it that, for ofreligion in the orthodox sense he possessed nothing, but he knew thathis feet were set upon the path where snow and blood would mingle inhis footprints. He was going back to Russia, where death would be athing to be welcomed and desired. He had listened to the tales ofescaped prisoners, and he knew that no words could exaggerate thisfrozen Hell in which flourished vices unnamable, where men rottedalive, and women strangled themselves with their own hair, or cut theirthroats with a scrap of glass to escape the brutalities of a gaoler orCossack guard. 

He wondered whether it would be Akatui, or the mines, for him. It wasno use to try and delude himself that he could escape the police. 

He had got out of Russia by the skin of his teeth last time, and, evenif he managed to get his despatches safely delivered, there would be araid on the newspaper office, an arrest in the street. Of course therewas always the hope that he might come in for a chance shot in ascrimmage, but that was too much luck to expect. 

He had nothing to wait for now after what he had heard to-night, andthe sooner he put himself out of the way, the better. He wouldvolunteer at once for the St. Petersburg mission. The usual custom wasto cast lots, unless some enthusiast begged for the privilege of aspeedy doom. By virtue of his long service he had a right to claimthat privilege. 

If he could go to-morrow so much the better. After what Arithelli hadconfessed it would be dangerous for them both if he stayed. For amoment the primaeval man in him leapt up, telling him that he had onlyto pit himself against Vardri, and the victory would be assuredly hisown. His rival was only a boy, and Emile knew that if there came thestruggle between male and male, the odds were all in his own favour. Arithelli had grown into the habit of obedience to him, and if hewished it he could make it practically impossible for her to see Vardriwithout his knowledge and consent. She would sorrow for her lover atfirst, but he was a man, and he could make her forget. 

A thousand little devils crowded close, whispering how easy it would beto get Vardri sent out of the way. A few words to Sobrenski, and thewhole thing would be done. 

His sense of justice reminded him that he least of all people had aright to grudge her a few hours of happiness. If he obliteratedhimself he was only making her a deserved reparation for some of thethings she had suffered. Through him she had joined the Anarchistranks, and through him she had taken vows that despoiled her of thehopes and joys of womanhood, and transformed her into an instrument ofvengeance. She had apparently never realised that she had been in anyway injured, for she had never blamed him, and been invariably gratefulfor anything he had done for her physical comfort. 

She loved Vardri, or imagined that she did. Emile told himselfsavagely that he was a fool who deserved no pity, for he had had hisown chance and missed it. He had been with her by night and day, andher life had been in his own hands all these months, but he had nevermade love to her. He had only bullied her, taught her, made her work, looked after her clothes and food, and, he knew it now too late, lovedher. 

She had never suspected it, and the secret should remain his own. Loveand love-making were two very different things. She did not know thatnow, but later on she would, when she was ten years older, perhaps, andthen it would not matter to him, for he would be under two or threefeet of snow in a Siberian convict settlement. 

He had gone about persuading himself that she was still a child, andthis Austrian boy, this wastrel and dreamer, had awakened her. 

It was no use wasting time in sentiment and regrets. _À la Guerre, comme à la Guerre_. The episode was finished. 

He would have work enough to divert his mind soon. There was nothingleft to him now but the Cause. 

He would see Sobrenski to-morrow, and hurry on all arrangements fordeparture. 

After all, as he had once told Arithelli, in any venture it is only thefirst step that counts. 

CHAPTER XVIII

 "Would I lose you now? Would I take you then? If I lose you now that my heart has need, And come what may after death to men, What thing worth this will the dead years breed?" THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 

Three days later the early morning post brought Arithelli a letter. 

She sat up in bed eagerly to receive it, and with the heaviness ofsleep still upon her eyes. As she read, the lace at her throattrembled with her quickened breathing, and her heart called back ananswer to the tender, reckless phrases. 

Vardri was idealist as well as lover, and graceful turns of expressioncame to his pen readily and without effort. In many pages ofcharacteristic, hurried, irregular writing he set forth wild andunpractical schemes for their future. 

He urged her to take the dangerous step of leaving Barcelona andcutting herself free of the bonds of her allegiance to the Cause. 

If there was risk in going, he wrote, there was infinitely more risk inremaining. 

If he abandoned his political views it was more than likely that hisfather would receive him. Their quarrel and parting four years ago hadbeen solely on those grounds, and he was the only son, and there werelarge estates to be inherited. 

If it were the price of gaining her he was prepared to renounce all histheories, socialist and revolutionist. 

He had been able to save a little money lately, enough for theirjourney to Austria. He was sure of a welcome among the officials andwork-people of his former home. The wife of the steward had been hismother's maid, and she and her husband would give him shelter till hecould see his father and make terms. 

If things turned out well then his life and Arithelli's would be onelong fairy-tale, which should begin where all other fairy-tales ended. If his father refused to see him then surely they could both find someengagement in another circus or Hippodrome. 

She had the advantage of the reputation she had gained here, and hecould work in the stables again, and they would be free and together. 

Arithelli kissed the letter, before she put it down, and lay back withher hands over her eyes, trying to think. She had begun her adventuresby running away from home, and now for the second time her only coursewas flight. Even Emile had told her not to waste time in going. Forher it seemed there was never to be any peace or rest. 

If they could only find some haven away from all the world, shethought. A forest or desert, some unknown spot where there was air andspace and natural savage beauty, a tent to dwell in, a horse to ride, complete freedom, the life of her remote ancestors, simple, dignified. 

Once she had craved for change. Now she feared it. She knew whatVardri had ignored, that the moment they both left Barcelona they wouldbecome fugitives. If they were discovered they would be treated simplyas deserters from the ranks of an army. 

Instinctively her thoughts turned to Emile. It was he who must helpher to decide. She slid out of bed, and commenced her toilet, whileshe recalled to mind the things that must be got through during theday. There was a manuscript to be delivered to Sobrenski, an articleof Jean Grave's from _Les Temps Nouveaux_ which she had copied forreproduction. 

She finished dressing her hair, and pushed the window more widely open, for the sound of music in the distance had caught her ear. 

Though it was now autumn, and in England there would have been mist andgloom and fogs, here the sun shone, and the air was sweet and mild. 

The parching, exhausting heat of the summer was gone, and everythingsmelt fresh and clean, without any touch of winter cold. 

Down below in the Calle Catriona the music swelled louder and highertill her attic room was filled with the dancing notes. 

Along the pavement two men walked slowly with guitar and flageolet. 

They walked turning in opposite directions, their heads thrown back, their feet keeping step, two black-haired, supple vagabonds of gypsybreed, who had come down to the city from their mountain home on theheights of Montserrat. 

The guitar twanged merrily, the reed-like notes of the flute were trueand clear as the song of a thrush. The melody turned and climbed andtwisted, rose to a climax, and re-commenced again the same phrase. Arithelli listened, hypnotised and bewitched, as she always was bymusic. 

Something wild and primitive in her responded to the shrill, sweet, insistent call. She had felt like that before, listening to theTziganes on the Rambla, and it was as if the heart were being draggedout of her body. She thought of the childish story of the Piper ofHamelin. She could understand now what had made the children followhim with dancing footsteps, through street to street, on, on from dawntill dusk. 

The guitar-player glanced up in passing and mocked her with laughingeyes. An orange-coloured scarf left his brown throat exposed, andthere were gold rings in his ears. She kissed her hand and called downgreetings in Spanish, and stood at the window, watching and listeningand longing to run out into the street and follow as the childrenfollowed through the town of Hamelin. 

All the joy of life was in those oft-repeated and alluring phrases, thefall of water, the hum of bees, the shiver of aspen leaves, the slowmusic of a breaking wave. 

She strained to hear the last faint echoes till all sound was hidden bya turn of the road, and the brief enchantment was at an end, leavingher to the realities of life. 

She dressed slowly, singing under her breath as she plaited her hairbefore Agnès Sorél's mirror. Before she left the room she thrust theloose sheets of Vardri's letter between the folds of her blouse, leaving the envelope lying among the bed clothes. 

Late in the afternoon one of the "comrades" brought her a ciphermessage, warning her of a meeting arranged to take place in the "BlackHole" up in the hills. 

Half an hour after she left the Hippodrome she was in boy's clothes andriding out to the _rendezvous_ to wait till the others appeared. Shehad hoped for the chance of a talk with Emile, but to her surprise hewas not among those who mustered outside the town. She had never knownhim to be absent from a meeting before, but it was not her business toask questions. 

While the rest of the company occupied themselves with long andbloodthirsty orations, and hatched fresh schemes for the destruction oftheir fellow-creatures, and the regeneration of the whole earth, shewent quietly about her duties as stable boy. 

When she had finished she set the lantern at the furthest end of thestable, and pulling off her hat and black curly wig stretched herselfwearily at full length on a truss of hay in a dark corner among thetethered horses. The ways of men she had begun to fear and hate, butof the beasts she had no fear, for they were always grateful to thosewho cared for them, and they also had suffered at the hands of theirmasters. 

A lethargy had taken possession of her whole body, and her limbs feltheavily weighted. She closed her eyes and sank inertly into the bed ofsoft and fragrant hay. 

Her loose shirt of faded dusky red had fallen open at the throat, andshowed the dead-white skin. Her feet, in riding boots of brownleather, were crossed beneath the dark drapery of her cloak. A leatherstrap served as a belt for the slender hips that were more like thoseof a boy than a woman. The horses fidgeted and stamped, and a muledragged at its halter with laid-back ears and vicious sidelong glances. Sometimes a stirrup or a bit clashed against another with a musicalring and jingle. 

Arithelli heard nothing till she awoke to find herself in Vardri'sarms, and being lifted into a sitting position with her back againstthe wall. 

In answer to her sleepy murmur of surprise, a hand was laid over hermouth with a whispered--"_Gare à toi petite! ne fais pas de bruit_. "

She sat up fully awake, and swept the veil of hair out of her eyes. 

"Oh! it's you, _mon ami_! Is it time to go? I must get up and see tothe horses. "

But he held her kneeling by her side. 

"No, no! Lie still, dear. There's time enough. Yes, Sobrenski isstill talking. Can't you hear him? You had my letter safely?"

She laid her hand on her breast. 

"It's here. "

"Thank you! How long is it since I've seen you? It seems like acentury. Those brutes up there were driving me mad with theircold-blooded arrangements for wholesale murder. The latest idea is toexplode a bomb outside one of the big _cafés_ when Alfonso comes herenext week to inspect the troops. They might as well leave him alone. What harm has he done them? As long as they can see people flying intoatoms with the help of a little nitroglycerine they are quite happy. Vengeance, vengeance! That is their eternal cry. Of course in Russiait's a different thing. One must either be an autocrat andslave-driver or a Nihilist out there, but here--they are mad, all ofthem! They have just settled to draw lots to-morrow night. I wonderwho will have the 'honour' of becoming executioner? I suppose theycan't do it to-night because Poleski isn't here. "

Arithelli shook her head. 

"That is not the reason. They have given Emile other work to do inRussia. He is leaving here very soon. I thought you knew. "

"Who told you that Poleski is going away? It may not be true. "

"Emile himself. Oh! it's true enough. I don't know when he will go. He doesn't know himself, but soon. "

"Will you trust me to take care of you when Poleski is gone?"

"I'll trust you always. "

"Promise me you'll come away with me. If you care you'll come. I'llgive up the Cause for your sake. I've told you so in my letter and nowI say it again. "

"So I've made you a traitor. Sobrenski was right. "

"My sweet, how can I live with violence and death and misery since Ihave known you? I want to get away from men and back to Nature to behealed. It doesn't follow that because I have grown to hate some ofthe revolutionist methods that I am against all their theories. Ibelieve they are right in sharing things, in fighting for those who aretrodden down by the rich, but you and I can still believe all thatwithout becoming inhuman. Think of Sobrenski. He's a werewolf, not aman! Promise me that you'll come soon. Let me take you away beforethey make you one of their 'angels of vengeance, ' as they call thesewomen of the revolution. "

Excitement and the feverish devil of consumption had turned his bloodto fire. He would take no denial, pay no heed to Arithelli'sentreaties for time to think, and to consult Emile. 

For once he forgot to be gentle, and dragged her head back roughly, whispering passionate words, his face pressed against her own. For amoment he saw no longer the goddess on her ivory throne, but a woman offlesh and blood, warm, living, and fragrant and to be desired after aman's fashion. 

Arithelli closed her eyes and leant back, yielding herself to hiscaresses. The pressure of his hand across her throat hurt her, but insome strange way it also gave her pleasure. Love, the schoolmaster, again stood by her side teaching her the lesson learnt sooner or laterby all women, that pain at the hands of one beloved is a thing closeakin to joy. She felt incapable of any struggle or resistance, bodilyor mental. She had given her heart therefore her body was also his touse as he willed, and feeling her thus abandoned to him all the boy'schivalry was stirred anew, and the hunger for possession was lost inthe desire to serve and protect. 

Possibly if he had been forty instead of twenty-eight, he would perhapshave demanded a man's rights. Being, however, according to the world'sstandard, a fool and a dreamer, he chose to let the moment pass, torefuse what the gods offered, to think of Arithelli rather than ofhimself. 

"I'm hurting you, dear. " His voice shook a little, in spite of hisefforts to control it. 

"No. Nothing hurts now. And I'm glad you love me. "

"I hurt you a minute ago. I was mad and a beast. Will you forgive me?You are not frightened?"

"No. I was only thinking of the future of tomorrow. "

"Let us forget to-morrow, " the boy pleaded. "Can you not forget foronce?"

"We have to-day, and each other. '_Aujourd'hui le Printemps, Ninon_. 'It's summer for us now, Fatalité! When one loves there is alwayssummer. "

He drew her out into the starlight as he heard the noise of the menpushing back their seats and moving about overhead. 

Several voices were raised in angry altercation. 

He raged inwardly as he thought how in a few minutes he would have tosee her at the orders of them all, sent here and there, at everyone'scall, and forced to work without either thanks or reward. 

"Let me go in, dear, " Arithelli said. "They will expect to find thingsready. "

But Vardri held her back. 

"Let them expect! Give them the trouble of looking for you. They keepyou up all night, so they can afford to waste a few minutes extra. "

It was both a foolish and useless protest and Arithelli knew that shewould pay afterwards for these snatched moments, but she did not grudgethe price, for to her they seemed worth the payment required. 

She was glad of the air too. 

She turned a little in Vardri's arms, lifting her face to the softnight wind. The coolness and the dark were like the touch of asoothing hand. 

The branches of the tree under which they stood rustled softly, and theundergrowth stirred with the startled movements of some awakened birdor small animal. 

A bat flew past, almost brushing them with its velvet wings. From themarsh lands below the dangerous white mist hovered like a fairy veil. 

"I love the night, " Arithelli whispered. "It makes me want to do allsorts of things. Do you remember the story of Marguerite of France, who heard the gypsies singing under her window and leant out and calledto them to take her away. I feel like that. Do you understand?"

Vardri drew her closer. "I know, my heart. Tell me more. "

"There were some gypsies singing under my window this morning, "Arithelli went on. "I wished I could have gone out and followed them'over the hills and far away' like the children in the old rhymes. TheIrish and Jewish people have always been wanderers. Perhaps that iswhy I am fated never to stay long in one place. "

He answered her in the same mood. 

"We'll start at once, shall we, Fatalité? We'll saddle two of thehorses and ride, ride day and night till we come to Montserrat, andthere we shall find your gypsies and their tribe. When you come to mycountry there'll be gypsies too, and they shall play and sing for you, and you'll know what music is for the first time. "

"How foolish we are!" Her eyes were wet, but she was smiling. "IfEmile heard me talking like this he would be so angry. "

"He talked like this once, " Vardri replied. "Poleski was young too notso very long ago, and he loved someone. "

"Yes, I know. " She found it almost impossible to think of Emile as alover in spite of the photograph she had found, and the words in hisown writing upon his songs. She knew them by heart. "_Emile à Marie. Sans toi la mort_. " And on another, "_Etoile de mon âme! Je vousadore de tout mon coeur, ton Emile_. "

Perhaps it was the memory of this passion of his youth that had madehim kind to her. 

While they talked and lingered, Sobrenski was descending the ricketyladder that served as a staircase. 

He had noticed Vardri's exit from the room, as he noticed everythingelse. All the other men had been too excited to care whether one moreor less was there or not. In the hot argument that raged in the upperroom, the absence of one of the members of the Brotherhood wasapparently forgotten. 

Their leader, however, did not lose his head or his powers ofobservation even when matters of life or death were in the balance. Whatever he did was always done deliberately and in cold blood. 

All the time he had been apparently presiding over the discussion hehad also been thinking rapidly. 

It would be to his ultimate advantage not to interfere with Arithelliand Vardri just now, but to let them be together, to see as much ofeach other as possible. It was as well that Vardri should becomethoroughly infatuated, as then he would be certain to take some stepthat would bring things to a crisis. They would be sure to try toescape out of the country and hide themselves somewhere. They wouldnot be the first people who had tried that sort of thing before. 

In the course of his life he had known others who had flung the Causeand their vows to the winds from fear or passion and tried to hidethemselves under some disguise. 

If they happened to be clever and have plenty of money their escape hadbeen fairly easy, and they had even been safe for perhaps a year or so. Then just as they had begun to feel secure and had grown careless, thevengeance of their own particular circle had overtaken them. There hadbeen accounts in the newspapers of a mysterious tragedy to which nomotive could be assigned, and for which no one could be brought tojustice, and that was all. 

They were all monotonously alike, these affairs!

Sobrenski had said little to anyone else of his suspicions. 

No need to declare anyone a traitor till it was proven. Such thingshad a demoralising effect, and treachery was an infectious disease. 

He descended the uneven rungs of the ladder, treading soft-footed as acat. 

There was no noise of talking, so of course she was asleep. _Sacré_, these lazy women! So she could not keep awake even for a lover!

The place was dark except for the glimmering light at the far end, andhe was obliged to feel his way to avoid the mules, who had an eviltrick of lashing out with their heels at anything in the vicinity. 

At the foot of the steps he trod on a riding whip, which he recognisedas one belonging to Vardri. 

In the dim circle of light cast by the smoky lamp there was only atruss of hay disordered as if someone had lain upon it, and the_manta_, and other things belonging to Arithelli. 

There was one thing more, a sheet of paper covered closely with anuntidy scrawl. 

The lynx eyes flashed, and Sobrenski bent eagerly forward. 

Bad as the light was it had not taken him long to recognise the writing. 

He held it close to the lamp, and smiled with satisfaction. 

Nothing could be better from his point of view. In the first sentencethere was all, even more, than he wanted. 

He smoothed it out between his pointed fingers, folded it, and bestowedit carefully in an inside pocket. 

It was just the kind of thing he would have expected from a girl ofArithelli's type, --to go about dropping letters. She had not methodenough even to put on her clothes decently; they always looked as ifthey were falling off, and her hair as if it was coming down. 

_Sapristi_! A fine agent for the Cause! and one fit to be trusted withimportant documents. 

Poleski must have been quite mad when he suggested introducing her tothe Brotherhood, and he himself deserved even more blame for having asmuch as listened to the suggestion. 

A girl of that age, picked up from nowhere, and like the rest of hersex a mass of lies and vanity. 

He held the lantern above his head, and peered round. Surely they hadnot been so utterly insane as to have attempted to escape to-night?All the horses and mules were there safe enough, and obviously theywould not attempt to walk. 

He strode towards the door, meeting them on the threshold, and in spiteof himself could not help being impressed by the uncanny likenessbetween the two, in form and outline. 

They had even the same trick of movement. 

The thought of what he had found made him feel almost good-humoured, although he took good care that no one else should benefit by thisunusual mood. 

"You have found yourself a little distraction, _hein_?" he said, ignoring Arithelli's presence. "We are not up here for amusement allthe same. There's nothing done. I supposed you had come down to seeto the horses. "

Vardri strolled across to a rack, and took down an armful of saddlesand stirrups. 

"I have, " he answered laconically. "They'll be ready in five minutes. "

Sobrenski turned to the girl, and spoke to her in an undertone. "Whatare you wasting time for? See to your work. " Vardri raised his headfrom the adjustment of a girth. 

"I'm doing Mademoiselle Arithelli's work. There is no need for her totrouble. " His accents possessed both dignity and command. For aninstant their positions were reversed. The leader smothered an oath;but said no more. He reflected that he could well afford to wait forhis revenge. The game was absolutely in his own hands if only they hadknown it. 

He could see that they were both perfectly unconscious of the fact thatthey had lost anything. When they discovered they would most likelyconclude it had happened during the ride up. 

When Arithelli had dragged herself up into her bedroom the sky waslighting with the dawn. They had mistaken the road and gone a mile ortwo out of the way, and one of the men had been thrown off and twistedhis ankle, and made another halt and delay. She drew the curtainsclosely and lay down without undressing. 

Before she slept she put her hand into her breast, and felt the rustleof the thin paper on which Vardri's letter had been written. 

It was not until the landlady had nearly battered down her door thatshe stirred four hours later, and then she unfastened her blouse anddrew out instead of the original two sheets, only one. 

She did not feel particularly alarmed; supposing it had been put withthe envelope that she had left about in the morning. Her things sooften got lost, and it was Emile who generally found them. 

CHAPTER XIX

 "Must a man have hope to fight? Can a man not fight in despair?" "A Polish Insurgent, " JAMES THOMPSON. 

How he lived through his last day in Barcelona Emile never quite knew. A strong will, strong tobacco, and plenty of work were all aids inhelping him to preserve his sanity. 

He soon arranged things with Sobrenski, and found no difficulty inobtaining the post of messenger in the St. Petersburg affair. 

He walked to the Hippodrome while the _matinée_ performance was inprogress, and left a message for Arithelli at the stage door. 

Then he went back to his rooms in the Calle San Antonio, and began tomake the few necessary preparations for departure. He was notencumbered with worldly goods, and his wardrobe was not extensive, sothere remained only to look through and destroy all documents, books, or letters that could not be carried about or that might involve thesafety of others. 

Certain songs and pieces of music he put together in a pile, the resthe tore across and threw into a corner. He would have no need of theseamusements now. Cultivation of the fine arts is not encouraged in thepolitical prisons. 

At five o'clock Arithelli entered the room, her clothes put oncarelessly, the grey pallor of intense weariness upon her face. Shehad been working early and late during the past two days, and thethought of the missing letter worried her from time to time. Sometimesshe felt almost certain that she had dropped it in changing from hercircus clothes, and that it had been appropriated out of curiosity byone of the women who shared the dressing-room. As it was written inEnglish, they would probably throw it away at once in disgust, annoyedat being deprived of the excitement of a romance or scandal. 

She knew it would be useless to make enquiries. If it had been leftthere it had been done late at night, and the dressing-rooms werealways cleaned early next morning, and it would have been swept awaywith the other rubbish. 

She had not said anything about her loss to Vardri. It would make himeven more anxious than herself, and she must bear the penalty of herown carelessness. 

She hoped that after all it would come to light in some box or draweramong her clothes. 

She came forward noiselessly across the polished, carpetless floor. 

"_Bon jour_, Emile! You wanted me?"

He pointed to a chair. 

"Sit down! Your hat is on crooked--as usual! Are you so little of awoman that you never use a mirror?"

A gleam of fun lit up her eyes. 

"You covered mine up the other night with that horrible wreath andstreamers. I can only see myself in little bits now. "

"Well, sit down and I'll talk to you presently. "

Emile returned to the sorting and destruction of his correspondence, and Arithelli lay back in her chair with a sigh of content, and closedher eyes. When she opened them again he was standing beside her with aglass of red wine in his hand. 

"Drink this, " he said, giving it to her. 

"It isn't _absinthe_, is it?" she asked. "I can't see in this light, and I don't want--"

"It doesn't matter what it is or what you want. Don't argue, butfinish it. How fond you women are of talking!" He waited till she hadobeyed him. 

"You see that music? Well, you can take it back with you. I shall nothave any more use for music when I leave here. And listen to me now, and don't go to sleep for the next five minutes if you can help it. "

He kept full control of himself and his feelings. If anything hisvoice was a little more rasping than usual, and his dry words ofcounsel and advice were spoken in his ordinary hard, practical manner. An outsider would have found it difficult to say which was the moreindifferent in appearance of these two who had been so strangelyintimate for half a year, and who were now about to part. 

The girl was apathetic from physical fatigue and past emotions. 

She thought as she looked round the familiar room how impossible it wasto believe that she would never be there again after to-day, and thatEmile would never again come to her. 

The wine cleared her brain and made her blood run more quickly. Sheroused herself to listen to what Emile was saying, and to answer thequestions he was asking her about her own arrangements. She thought heseemed relieved when she told him of Vardri's scheme, and sherestrained a strong desire to tell him also about the missing letter. 

He gave her an address in the Russian capital to which she could writeduring the next month, warning her at the same time to be careful inwhat she said, to mention no names, and to avoid all references topolitics, as his correspondence would run the risk of being edited bythe police. Inside the envelope on which the address was written hehad enclosed forty francs. 

"You'll probably find a little money useful one of these days, " hesaid. "Keep it till you really want it. You can't wear more than onepair of boots at once, and there are other things more important. Idon't want you to thank me. You can go and sing something instead, anddo your best as it's for the last time. "

Arithelli rose at once and went to the piano, eager to do somethingthat might give him pleasure. 

She could play for herself now. Emile had succeeded in teaching her afew easy accompaniments, so that he could listen without distraction. 

She hesitated for a minute, turning over his big music book, and thenchose the popular song of the _café-chantants_ and streets, the famous"_La Colombe_" with its lilting time, and mingled gaiety and sorrow. One heard it everywhere, sung in Spanish, in the local patois, and inFrench, by _artistes_ in the theatres, by factory girls, and sailors, and market people. The _gamins_ and beggars whistled and hummed it inthe streets and squares. 

Emile walked up and down the room as he listened. He had made her singin the hope of lessening in a small degree the strain he was enduring, but what had possessed her to choose this song of all others? Thewords told of one who was about to set sail, and lingered bidding adieuto his Nina, the woman he loved. 

 "_Le jour où quittant la terre pour l'océan, Je dis, priez Dieu, priez Dieu pour votre enfant. Avant que nous mettre en route je crus revoir, Nina! qui pleurait sans doute de désespoir. _"

One could hear the rocking of the boat at anchor, the rippling of theout-going tide. 

In the second verse the time was changed, the words were hurried andinsistent. 

 "_Nina! si je succombe, el qu'un beau soir, Une blanche colombe vient te voir, Ouvre-lui ta fenêtre car ce sera, Mon âme qui peut-être te reviendra. _"

Her voice had grown weaker since her illness, and she sang with visibleexertion and faulty breathing, but it was still the golden voice of theIsraelitish woman, and there was the same _tîmbre_ that had attractedhim, and made him speak to her that afternoon in May at the station. 

And all that had only happened six months ago! When she had finishedhe said nothing in approval, but he asked her to sing again, and sheunderstood, and was pleased. 

"You may thank the Fates for having given you a voice, " he told her. "It's better than a face. It lasts longer. No man having once heardyou would listen to another woman. "

It was the first compliment he had ever made her, but Arithelli did notanswer. Her back was turned towards him as she gathered together themusic. 

He could see that her whole body was trembling with repressed sobs. Ifhe could only have been sure they were for him, he would have taken herin his arms. She was sorry he was going, perhaps, in a way, but not inthe way he wanted. She had become dependent upon him, and he hadfilled a certain place in her life. If she made a scene it wasentirely his own fault. Farewells were always a mistake, and he hadbeen foolish enough to allow her to sing sentimental verses about dovesand people's wandering souls. She was over-tired and over-wrought, anda woman's tears were more often due to physical than to mental reasons. So he argued, trying to convince himself, yet knowing all the time thatArithelli was not one of the women whose emotions are on the surface. 

Once before he had seen her cry, and now as then he stood apart. Itwas for Vardri to dry her tears. 

He glanced at the clock. Of course it was wrong, but he knew by theshadows that filled the room that it must be time for her to leave ifshe was to appear in public again to-night. 

He must hurry the interview to a close, for he could not play his partmuch longer. 

"You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Arithelli. _Vous avez lachance_! What have I given you but work and grumbles, eh?"

The soft, broken voice answered him:

"I shall feel afraid without you. "

"You will have Vardri, --your lover. " His tone was brutal as the blowof a knife. The natural animal jealousy of a man had risen in himagain. When he was between stone walls, she would have the warmth of alover's arms; every nerve in his own body would know it, and long forthat which he had himself resigned. 

He would have long hours to sit and think the thoughts that drive mento insanity or self-destruction. 

"Yes, but one can care in different ways, and you have done so manythings for me. "

The man drew in his breath sharply. The knife was in her hand now, butshe had stabbed unconsciously. He knew that she spoke quite simply, thinking only of his care for her physical well-being. 

Truly he had done things, things that he would have given several yearsof life to undo. 

Now he had that for which he craved, --the assurance that she cared, that she would miss him. Still he did not delude himself. He knewthat what she felt towards him was not the love between a woman and hermate, but the affection of dependence, of habit. Yet for such as itwas his soul uttered thanksgiving. Any other woman gifted with a lesssweet nature would have felt for him nothing but hatred, but inFatalité's mind neither spite nor malice ever found a place. The pettyvices of womankind had never been hers. He knew now that he had beensomething to her, and that knowledge would make sunshine for him evenin the shadow of a prison. It gave him courage also to play out thetragi-comedy to the end, to make a brave jest, to lie convincingly. 

"We needn't make each other eternal adieux, _mon enfant_. You must nottake all I said about Siberian dungeons _au serieux_. Russia isn'tquite as dangerous as it's made out to be. Of course the police keep awatch more or less on the 'suspects, ' but we know all their tricks, andhow to avoid them. Plenty of us go to St. Petersburg and even to Karaand come back again. The Schlusselburg fortress is about the onlyplace we haven't succeeded in getting out of yet. It's fairly easy tomanage a false passport. You can write to me at the address I've givenyou. "

 * * * * * *

It was all over now, and he was alone. He had taken both her hands foran instant, and felt the convulsive clinging of the thin fingers. Hehad longed to kiss them, but dared not trust himself. His words wereonly such as might have been used by anyone of the Brotherhood. 

"_Au revoir, camarade_!"

"_Au revoir_!"

Her tears were falling still, though she answered him steadily enough. 

Then she turned away, pulling down her veil, and he saw her gropeblindly for the fastening of the door. It shut gently behind her, andhe was alone. He sat down by the table with its litter of books andnewspapers, and stared dully round the room which her passing had leftmore hopeless and ugly than ever. 

Life itself would be more _fâde_ and ugly now. As well for him thatafter to-day he would have no time to sit and brood. It would be allstern reality soon, enough to cure him of lovesickness. 

First the work and risks of a secret printing press in some cellar orsordid room behind a shop, and later on the inevitable police-raid, atrial that would be no trial with the condemnation signed before-hand, and afterwards the _travaux forcés_, the long marches, the agonies offarewell at the Siberian boundary-post--not for him, for his were said, but for his companions in misery--the miseries of the sick and dying, the partial starvation, and the horrors of dirt and vermin. There weresure to be some women too among the "politicals, " and he would beobliged to watch their sufferings. 

There would be no imaginary grievances in that life at all events. 

On the floor, as it had dropped from among the music there lay aphotograph, face downwards. 

He picked it up and looked back at the childish, smiling face, thetiny, rounded figure of Marie Roumanoff. 

"_Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse_. "

His mouth twisted into a cynical smile. She had been a true prophetesswhen she had written that. 

He tore the picture across, and threw it upon the rest of the _débris_. 

The Roumanoff would never haunt his dreams again. 

Her portrait was easily destroyed. A flimsy thing of print and paper, as slight and fragile as herself. 

Of Arithelli he possessed no tangible likeness, but he would have heralways with him, for her image was seared deep upon both heart andbrain. 

_The Witch_ sailed out of Barcelona harbour with the early morningtide. Besides Emile and Vladimir, and a small picked crew, she carriedan assortment of strangely-shaped machines, things that looked like theinside of a clock, and were full of wheels and cogs, firearms, andammunition, some copies of a revolutionist manual on street fightingtactics, and other inflammatory literature. 

Their plan was to enter Russia by way of Finland, leaving all thethings there to be smuggled through by degrees. 

When they came to the frontier they would part company. Emile wouldmake his way towards the city that holds its trembling autocrat asclosely guarded in his palace as any convict in the mines, whileVladimir was to go back to Spain overland to report success or failurein the landing and disposal of their dangerous cargo. 

All day the two men sat together, talking, plotting, preparing for allcontingencies. 

There were no feminine voices to be heard on board the yacht now, nosinging on deck in the evenings, no hint of the presence of a woman, either as wife, mistress, or companion. 

They neither discussed nor recalled these vanished days, though one hadhours of memory and regret, and the other was consumed with a savagehunger for that which he had lost. 

Both had taken upon themselves vows that put them outside the pale ofhuman ties and affections. 

The Goddess whom they both served had risen, claiming their allegiance, their service, and with the lives and ways of mortal women they had noconcern. The Cause had triumphed. 

CHAPTER XX

 "Do you not know I am a woman?" AS YOU LIKE IT. 

Sobrenski was a man who wasted no time in making up his mind. Hissuccess as a leader had depended upon his swiftness of action andunscrupulousness, and his latest manoeuvres had turned out an admirablesuccess, upon which he might safely congratulate himself. 

The day following the resolution of the Committee, he had written toArithelli, telling her to come to his flat to receive instructions. She would arrive in due time, and then he would explain things. 

He wondered whether she would faint or scream or perhaps refuse, butprobably she would be easier to manage now that Poleski was safely outof the way. He had schemed that business well too, and could now spareall his attention for Vardri and the girl. 

As to the amount of work they both did, they would be no great loss, for he could easily supply their places by other human machines whowould carry out his desires without question. The majority of the menwho composed the circle were completely dominated by him, and incapableof opposing his will or argument, and by some he was worshipped as ahero. Callous of suffering in others, he was equally indifferent to itfor himself, and if he did not spare his tools he also slavedincessantly day and night. 

The large bare room in which he sat possessed very little furniture andno signs of comfort. There were a quantity of books piled on the floorand mantelpiece, and the centre space was filled by an enormous bureauheaped with a mass of printed and written papers, for besides hisextensive correspondence he was part-editor of one of the Anarchistjournals, which he enlivened by daring and sarcastic contributions. The fragment of the letter that Arithelli had dropped, lay open infront of him. He read it through again and smiled to himself. 

"I'll give up even the Cause for your sake, " Vardri had written. "Seeing how these men have made you suffer has changed my views. Theremust be something wrong about our ideas if they produce this cruelty towomen. Sobrenski and the others are killing you slowly. I wantedstruggle and excitement at one time, and whether it meant Life or Deathit was all the same. There was no one to care. Now I want Life andLove and You!"

Another madman like Gaston de Barrés! How alike all these effusionswere, all in the same strain. They had found a pile of ravings whenthey had searched among the property of the heroine of that affair. These were the people who did an incredible amount of harm, who wereeven more dangerous than the ordinary traitor. 

He pushed the letter underneath some others, and Arithelli had knockedmore than once, before he called "_Entrez_!"

He saluted her with a cold scrutiny, telling her to wait till he hadfinished. He invariably made a point of using no title in addressingher, and never even gave her the customary Anarchist greeting of_camarade_. He did not invite her to sit down, and she would have beensurprised if he had done so. There was another chair at the far end ofthe room, and she did not trouble to fetch it. Her heart was stillfurther weakened by her illness, and she was breathless after climbingtwo long flights of stairs. She leant up against the wall, breathingquickly, and thankful for a few moments' respite. 

She supposed she was required to play "errand-boy" as usual, and to gothrough the well-known routine: A crumpled-up slip of paper, which shemust hide in her hair or dress, a long walk, or a ride in the electrictram if she happened to have any money, and then perhaps at the end ofit she would find the man for whom she was seeking absent, and then shewould have to wait till he returned. It was never safe to leave amessage. Everything had to be given directly into the hands of thosefor whom it was intended, and she had spent many weary hours in therooms of Sobrenski's followers. 

She studied his face as he rapidly stamped his letters, flinging themon to a pile of others that lay ready. It crossed her mind how Emilehad once likened a certain group of the conspirators to a pack of courtcards, saying that they were alternately red and black. 

Sobrenski's hair and small peaked beard were of a curiously unpleasantcolour, and his thin lips, pointed teeth and long sloping jaw gave hima wolfish appearance. His eyes, deep-set and narrow, were too closetogether to satisfy a student of Lavater as to his capacity fortruthfulness. The forehead alone was good, and showed reasoning andintellect. He was about fifty, and like all fair men looked less thanhis age. He was better dressed, and altogether more careful of hisappearance than most of the other men, though he spent nothing onluxuries and never touched the _absinthe_, to which most of them wereaddicted. The sole luxuries in which he indulged were Work and Power. 

"Probably you have heard a great deal of talk about spies lately, " hebegan, addressing Arithelli in French. "For some time I have suspectedone of our own number of treachery. However, one cannot condemnwithout proofs. For these I have been waiting and they have now comeinto my hands. I'm perfectly satisfied that the man I have all alongsuspected is a traitor, and there is no need to delay action anylonger. I suppose Poleski has informed you of how we treat those whoare unwise enough to betray us?"

"Yes. "

She was on her guard now, and stood upright, all her languor gone. Whycould he not say what he meant at once? She wondered why he had takenthe trouble to seek for proofs of anyone's guilt. Enough for a man ofhis type to find an obstruction in his path. He would need noauthority but his own for removing it. She hated him all the more forhis parade of justice. It had not occurred to her that his speech wasa prelude to anything that concerned Vardri. If anyone was implied sheimagined it was herself. These men were never happy unless they weresuspecting evil of someone. The Anarchist leader found in herincomprehension merely another sign of feminine stupidity. Her outwardair of indifference was as irritating to him as it had been to theHippodrome Manager. Sobrenski's blood had never stirred for any woman, however charming, and Arithelli's type of looks was repulsive to him. He loathed her thinness and pallor, her silence and immobility ofexpression. He vowed inwardly that she should look less indifferentbefore he had finished with her. 

"You do not appear to have the least idea of the identity of the man towhom I am referring, " he continued. "Your friend Vardri is not a verycareful person. He is young, and shall we say, a little foolish. Itis always risky to say or write anything against the Cause one issupposed to be serving. "

"To say _or write_. " It dawned upon her all at once. The piece of theletter she had missed, had been dropped in the stable up in the hillsand found by Sobrenski. It was all her own fault, sheer rankcarelessness. Emile had so often warned her against her fatal habit ofleaving everything about. She never locked up anything, jewellery, clothes, money or papers. 

Perhaps in the hurry of dressing that night, she had only taken withher the first page, and when she was out her rooms had been searched, and the rest stolen. Sobrenski would stop at nothing to get theevidence he wanted. If she accused him of having taken it he wouldsimply deny the charge, and to seem anxious would be further evidencethat the letter contained something that would compromise either Vardrior herself. In any case it appeared that the mischief was done. Toexpect either justice or mercy from her enemy was out of the question. She would try and fight him with his own weapon, feign ignorance, telllies if necessary. 

"Vardri? What has he done?"

The note of surprise in her voice was well assumed and she couldcontrol her face, but her hands betrayed her. Sobrenski had seen theblue veins stand out and the knuckles whiten unnaturally with thepressure on the black fan she carried to shield her eyes in the street. 

"Done?" he echoed contemptuously. "Nothing so far. He has only talkedand written. It is to provide against his doing anything importantthat the Committee have decided upon his removal. There was a meetingheld last night and the voting was unanimous. Vardri has beencondemned as a traitor to his vows, and a danger to everyone connectedwith our work. "

"Condemned without a hearing!" the girl flamed out. "_Mon Dieu_! Yourjustice! What has he done?"

"Have you a right to question the judgment of the Committee?" Thevoice was like a scourge falling on bare flesh. Arithelli drew hershoulders together involuntarily. 

"No!" she answered. 

"Yet you do it! These womanly inconsistencies are a little fatiguing. "

Sobrenski caressed his beard with a narrow, bloodless hand, on themiddle finger of which was a curious ring of twisted gold wire. 

He waited to see if she would make any further protest, but she set herlips firmly and refused to speak. There was nothing more to be said onher side. Evidently Sobrenski had found the letter, and when or whereit had been found mattered not at all. He continued:

"The sentence has been passed and it falls upon you to execute it. "

The answer came back swiftly:

"And if I refuse?"

For once in his life Sobrenski was taken aback, and experienced a newsensation, that of surprise. He looked at her with almost approval. If he was cruel he was also courageous, and able to appreciate thevirtue in others. 

"You know what your refusal implies?" he questioned, more gently thanhe had yet spoken. "You refused some time ago to carry a message. Youwill perhaps remember that I gave you the choice between doing as youwere told, or--" he gesticulated expressively. "You were wise then. Ihope you will be wise now. "

Arithelli's thoughts were going at racing speed. No one could be longin a room alone with Sobrenski without being impressed by hisoverpowering personality. He affected her in a way that no one elseever did, in provoking her to futile outbursts of defiance and anger. She had never lost her head with anyone else, but he always made herincapable of reasoning, raging one minute, and cowed the next. Hitherto Emile had always been there to screen and protect her, tostand between her and her enemy. She knew now why he had so oftenhoped to see her in her coffin. 

"I can't murder! I undertook to work for the Cause, but not that--_MonDieu_! not that!"

"We don't talk about murder, " Sobrenski sneered. "We merely 'remove'those who have proved themselves untrustworthy. You undertook to obeyorders, I believe. You may contradict me if I am incorrect. "

He leant forward with the glittering eyes of the fanatic. "You talk ofmurder and forget that to us human life is nothing. Do you think youwill save Vardri by refusing? Am I to suppose that he has infected youalso with the taint of disloyalty? It is your business to loathe atraitor as we do. You wear your badge, but do you never read the wordson it? Poleski used to tell me great things of your enthusiasm, yourdevotion. Now I am putting you to the test. You like to act apicturesque part, it seems, to wear boy's clothes, to sing, to be theonly woman among us, to act the heroine. We do not want acting here. This is Life, not the stage. Now you are asked to give a practicalproof of your loyalty!"

The pitiless tongue lashed, and Arithelli shrank against the wall, herhands over her eyes. There had been stories current among the youngermembers of the Barcelona Anarchists that Sobrenski possessed the powerof hypnotism and did not scruple to use it. Some of the most daringand successful outrages of the past years had been carried out underhis direction, and executed by these youths. He always made a point ofchoosing men who were highly strung and impressionable. He was knownto boast that after three interviews with him he could make anyone, either man or woman, into a will-less automaton. 

He exhorted, jeered, encouraged and derided, finally giving Arithellifive minutes in which to make her decision. She did not keep himwaiting, though he could scarcely hear the murmured words of assent. Her nerve was broken at last. She would promise anything, do anythingif only he would let her go. Dazed with fear and misery, she watchedhim get up, unlock a drawer of the bureau and come across to herholding out something. 

"I shall arrange for you to be together one night up in the hut. Idon't know whether you have any idea of shooting, but you can hardlymiss at such close range. "

The brutal words steadied her, and drove back the feeling of mentalparalysis. She realised suddenly all that her promise meant. Vardrihad given her love, and in return she was to give him Death! Her owndawning love had enabled her to see more clearly what his devotionmeant. With the growth of a woman's soul she had also begun toexperience womanly emotions, fear, anxiety, the need of sympathy andaffection. 

She snatched the pistol from Sobrenski's hand, and he stepped back apace, throwing up his arm instinctively as she raised, levelled andfired. 

The weapon clicked harmlessly, her hand dropped to her side, and shestood shivering, and wondering at her own madness. The whole thing hadbeen done without thinking, as an animal driven into a corner turns, snarling and showing its teeth. 

Sobrenski recovered himself first and laughed. 

"So you thought it was loaded?" he said. "Do you take me for a fool?Allow me to congratulate you on your--failure!"

Then changing his tone of sarcasm to command: "You must hide thatpistol carefully. Put it inside your dress or somewhere safe. Isuppose you would like to march down the Paséo de Gracia, carrying itin your hand, and wearing a tragic expression, --and get locked up bythe first agent de police you meet! You have pluck enough, but youshould avoid these exhibitions of hysteria. "

He gripped her by the shoulder, swung her round, and pointed to thedoor, "_Allez_!"

CHAPTER XXI

 "My crown is without leaves, For she sits in the dust and grieves, Now we are come to our kingdom. " "Anthony and Cleopatra, " KIPLING. 

Once more the procession of conspirators toiled on its way up theirregular mountain path. The horses slipped and stumbled under theirunskilful riders, the mules climbed steadily upwards. No one spoke. 

As usual Arithelli led the way. 

Vardri, who had arrived last of all, rode forward to join her, but wascurtly ordered to the rear by Sobrenski. 

They should see enough of each other later on, --when it was time. 

Before they started on their ride he spoke to Arithelli alone, and gaveher his final instructions, and saw for himself that the pistol shewore at her belt was properly charged. He never left anything tochance, especially in important undertakings such as the present one. 

"There will not be a long meeting to-night, " he said. "You will havean hour free to do your work. You hear?"

His eyes were fixed on hers, compelling an answer. None came, thoughshe bowed her head in token of acquiescence, and though he could hearno word Sobrenski was satisfied. He had seen that shrinking attitude, that mechanical gesture before. In the plot to assassinate GeneralMorales there had been a young Spanish student who had given sometrouble. He had developed a conscience at the last minute, and vowedthat he could not kill an old and defenceless man, that he would ratherdie himself. 

He had died, and so had Morales, and both by the explosion of the bombthat had been launched by the hand of the former. 

Sobrenski held rightly that those who meddled with politics on eitherside must dispense with such useless things as scruples. 

The night was still and sultry, with a full moon hanging low in thesky. The weather had been unnaturally warm for the time of year, allday, down in the city. 

They were all glad when they had mounted above the sea-level. 

There was a little breeze met them, and the tired and patientlyplodding horses raised their heads. 

Arithelli drew a long breath of relief as she shifted in her saddle, and glanced back to see if they were all in sight. 

The _manta_ in which she was wrapped stifled her, and the weight of herown hair under the wig and sombrero made her head ache and throbviolently. 

As they rode she rehearsed her plans in her own mind, telling herselfover and over again the things that she must say and do when she wasalone with Vardri. 

To-night would see Sobrenski's triumph, his grand coup, and when it wasall over perhaps she would have peace. 

How slowly they all seemed to ride, she thought. She wondered how manyof the other men knew that she was chosen to act the part of murderess. Some of them had been kind to her in a rough way, especially the olderones. 

But even if they did pity her a little, not one among them but wouldexpect her to do the thing that they would consider obviously her duty. 

No one would raise a voice on her behalf, whatever their privatesentiments. 

The majority of them would probably look upon her as a heroine, for shewould have rid them of a spy, a traitor. 

She could only hope that she might keep her brain clear, her couragefirm till the supreme moment. 

Once in the course of that awful day her nerves had given out inphysical collapse, and her shaking hands had let fall the mirror ofAgnès Sorél. 

It lay on the floor in her bedroom, broken in three places. 

Her early days in Ireland had given her a belief in the omens of goodand evil, for in the "emerald gem of the Western world" superstitionruns riot. 

The faith in it was in her blood, though it needed no broken mirror totell her what dread thing awaited her, towards which she must advance, urged by fate. 

She had only written one letter, and that one was to Emile. Now thathe was gone there was no one else who cared. 

Something told her now that his last words had only been an attempt tocomfort her, to ease her mind, and that she would wait in vain for hisreturn. 

Estelle would weep for a little while, and drink a great deal to drownher tears, and then forget. They were nearly at the hut now. Shecould see it, a grotesque shadow thrown across the silvered earth. 

She slipped off and walked, leading her mule by the bridle. 

Behind her were subdued curses, the rattle of slipping hoofs andfalling stones, as the animals climbed the last and steepest piece ofroad, which ended in the plateau on which the building stood. 

In front of it was a single large tree, but most of the ground close bybore nothing higher than dwarf shrubs and long grass. 

When the cavalcade drew up and dismounted, Vardri was discovered to bemissing. 

He had been late in starting, lagged behind the others and dropped outof sight before they were scarcely clear of the town. Being the lastof the file his disappearance had not at first been remarked. 

Sobrenski refused to allow of time being wasted in a search. 

He ordered the rest of the men up into the loft, and Arithelli to herwork of unharnessing. 

He himself remained standing in the shadow of the doorway, his eyesnarrowed with anger, his thin lips compressed till they were merely aline. 

Here was a complication that he had not foreseen. For the first timein his life his wit and cunning had been at fault. 

He must have been mad not to have kept a sharper lookout on Vardri, buthe had reckoned he was secure with Arithelli as decoy. 

Could it be possible that she had been mad enough to warn Vardri? Ifso, then why was she here herself?

Either she had more courage or else she was more foolish even than hecould have believed it possible for a female creature to be. Womentook good care of their own skins in general!

If Vardri meant to try and escape, surely they would have gone together. 

Perhaps his, Sobrenski's, detailed descriptions of the fate of otherswho had attempted flight had made her decide that it would be safer toremain and throw herself on the mercy of himself and his companions. 

He might have miscalculated the force of her attraction for Vardri, buthe felt perfectly certain that she was reduced to a state of mechanicalimbecility. She could not escape now at all events, even if shesuddenly changed her mind. 

He would give them both five minutes, and then if Vardri did notappear--!

He began to walk up and down outside, like some prowling animalawaiting its prey. 

At regular intervals his shadow crossed and recrossed the patch oflight from the open door. 

Meanwhile Vardri was riding leisurely up the slope, reining back hishorse, and stopping at intervals to put a fair distance between himselfand the others. He intended to make a chance of seeing Arithelli aloneagain, so he meant to wait till the whole crew, and especiallySobrenski, were safely embarked on their eternal discussions. Then hewould slip in and help her with the animals, and live in Paradise againfor a little space of time. 

He had been to her rooms earlier in the day but she had sent down amessage to beg him to excuse her. She had a headache, and was lyingdown, so he had been obliged to go away unsolaced, and longing for theevening. 

Now that she had given him her promise to go with him to Austria, therewas only to arrange the day and the hour of their departure. For oncehe was alive to the necessity for prompt action. There was her safetyto be considered now. When he had been alone it had not mattered howanything was done or not done, but now everything was different. Theworld itself was another place. He had already actually written andposted a tentative letter to his father, such a letter as he couldnever have written if only his interests had been concerned, but hefound any sacrifice an easy one now, even the sacrifice of pride. 

There was no reason why they should not start to-morrow. It would besafer to get out of the place by going round by the Mediterranean andthence across by way of Italy. 

Water-travelling was cheaper, too. He laughed to himself to think howpractical he was becoming. How strange it would seem to live in acivilised fashion again, to not be obliged to look at every sou beforeit was spent, to have servants to wait upon one; enough to eat anddrink, and the luxury of cleanliness. 

Yet the vagabond life had had its charm, too. He had encounteredkindness often, generally from those in more evil plight than his own, and there had been flowers and music and sunshine. True, he had felthorribly ill and dejected on some days, and his wretched cough was anannoyance to himself and to other people, but at times he felt readyfor anything, and more energetic than any three of those lazy Spaniards. 

Love and Arithelli would be a sure antidote for any misery or disease. For her he had created a House of Dreams, and now the dreams were onthe verge of becoming realities. Instead of the sand and stones ofthat desert that men call Life, a rainbow-coloured future lay stretchedout before him. Sunshine and the summertime of love, all that he hadever hoped for, were coming nearer. And joy was hovering near at hand, till he could almost touch her flying robe. Soon he would hold her inhis arms, would possess her entirely. 

How different Arithelli was from all other women! With her there wasnever caprice or fickleness. Whatever she said was his law, whatevershe wished to do was the right thing. 

Now he had abjured the Revolution, his father would be only too glad tohave him back, to see him married to a woman of Arithelli's charm andbreeding. There had never been any quarrel with his family, exceptwhen he had joined the Red Flag party, and it was only natural thatthey should quarrel over that. Love or the Revolution? There wouldnever be any more doubt now as to which he would choose. 

In the old days he had preferred starvation, and the freedom to act, and think as he liked. He had gloried in being an outcast, insuffering for the Cause. Life had been hard at times, but he had knownmen of ideals and enthusiasms and there had been a certain fascinationin the excitement of being hunted. But now that was all over and a newday was dawning for them both, for himself and for Arithelli. 

He spoke to his horse and stirred it into a quicker pace. 

They must be well out of the way and she would think he was nevercoming. 

Inside the stable Arithelli, tall and straight in her scarlet shirt, moved to and fro at her work, hanging up saddles and bridles, carryingpails of water, ranging on either side of the hut the horses and themules. Tortured as she was with anxiety, she did not forget the wantsof her friends the animals. It came across her mind how once when shehad said to Vardri, "Let us see to the horses first, " he had said halfin jest, "If I were a Spaniard I should be jealous. You always thinkof the animals before everything else. "

One by one the rest of the conspirators tramped heavily up the ladder, leaving her alone with Sobrenski, who stood with his back to thedoorway, following her with his eyes as she moved to and fro in theshadows cast by the solitary lamps. 

Before he mounted the ladder in his turn, he came across the hut, tookher by the shoulder and spoke to her. "Be careful how you do yourwork, for if it is not well done others will do it for you. "

She could not answer; she shuddered at his touch; her hands went up andcovered her face. 

Sobrenski turned and mounted the worn rungs of the narrow ladder with alithe, active step. He was quite sure of her now. She would not failto carry out his will. 

CHAPTER XXII

 "Il n'y a que l'amour et la mort. "

For a few minutes after he had gone, Arithelli stood motionless, stillwith her hands pressed tightly over her eyes, trying to command herbrain to work clearly. Her will and her limbs seemed paralysed. Shecould only wait for Vardri's approach. Once she prayed an inarticulatewordless prayer, that inspiration might be sent her to find a way outof this _impasse_ in which there seemed neither light nor opening. 

Time was passing, and every moment was bringing her nearer the mostappalling destiny that could ever be meted out to any woman. If shedid Sobrenski's bidding she would be not only a murderess, but themurderess of the being she loved most in the world. Vardri, who was sodifferent from all the other men; Vardri, who could never bear anythingto be hurt, or even to be made uncomfortable. She knew that it wasperfectly useless for both of them to attempt to escape. Someone wasmost likely posted at the window of the loft, they would get nodistance on foot without being overtaken, and if she attempted to leadout any of the horses or mules, the noise would probably attractattention. 

Her hands fell to her side, and her head went up as she listenedintently. So he was coming, after all. In that undisturbed space andclear dry air, sound travelled quickly, and she could hear theapproaching hoof-beats while he was still some way off. With theknowledge of his approach the blood flowed again warmly in her veinsand courage and decision came back to her. Her senses, unnaturallyacute, told her that Vardri had now dismounted and was leading hishorse. She could distinguish his footsteps, and then the monotonousregular footfalls of his mount. She ran out into the patch ofmoonlight, casting a hurried backward glance at the side of the hut. Thank God! the window was on the other side!

Vardri was coming slowly towards her, his horse's bridle over his arm. Before she covered the distance between them she made a gesture thatenjoined silence and stopped his greeting. "Don't bring your horsein, " she whispered. "Tie him up out of the way over there, a good wayoff the hut. I'll explain presently. "

In another moment Vardri was beside her in the hut and had her in hisarms. 

"What is it, _mon petit_? There must be something wrong. HasSobrenski--?"

"No, no, he has done nothing. It's just that I don't want you to be uphere too long to-night. I want you to do something for me. Will you, Vardri?"

"Do you think you'll need to ask me twice to do anything for you, dear?"

He stood with his hands on her shoulders, his dark eyes gazing down ather hungrily. "Did you think I was never coming? I stayed behind onpurpose. I felt that Sobrenski intended to prevent our talkingtogether. " Arithelli snatched eagerly at his words. They had givenher the clue she wanted. 

"Yes, that's it. It's dangerous for me if we are seen often together. I've done something so mad and foolish, Vardri, you must help me to putit right, --you _can_. Those letters you have written me saying allsorts of things against the Cause, --I left a piece of one aboutsomewhere, --I don't know where, --and Sobrenski found it. He has justtold me that in about half an hour's time before all the rest of themleave, he is going to send on one of the men in advance. He will getdown to the town before us, go to my rooms and yours and collect allthe letters that have passed between us; and use them, as then he willhave what he has always wanted, --the proofs that we are what he wouldcall traitors. And when he has these proofs, neither of us will besafe for an instant. It will mean death to both of us sooner or later. But even Sobrenski can't murder us without sufficient evidence. Hewill be obliged to make some formal parade of justice to put it allbefore the rest of the society. If he doesn't get our letters he willnot have sufficient evidence. "

"But if we go away together to-night, as we intended? We've got astart. We can take the best horses. That is the best plan. "

Arithelli shook her head. "Listen to me, dear, and believe in awoman's wisdom for once. If we go to-night and together, we are boundto be recaptured before we are out of Barcelona. By doing what Isuggest we avoid suspicion, we give ourselves breathing-space, time toarrange a disguise, to think of all sorts of things that we haveoverlooked. We have everything in our favour to-night, Sobrenski doesnot know you are here yet. If you go soon you will get away withouthis having seen you at all. Here is the key of my room. Go therefirst, and you will find all your own letters in a wooden box in my bigtrunk. That isn't locked. Open it and burn them all. Then go on toyour own room, do the same with yours and stay there. If they raid myroom, they will find nothing suspicious. You could pretend you wereill, and that's the only reason you haven't come tonight, and I am heredoing my work as usual. Nothing could be less suspicious. Then whenthey are off their guard we can escape. "

The minutes were flying. Death thrusting his lean face before the rosyface of Love. Sobrenski's phrase sounded in her ears like the tollingof a bell. "You have an hour free to do your work. " An hour, only anhour! How long had they been there already? Time and all else alikeseemed blurred. All her will must be concentrated upon one thing--tomake Vardri leave her as quickly as possible. Yet she dare not show asign of haste or emotion lest he should suspect something amiss andrefuse to go. 

"Dear, it is a wonderful plan this, of yours, " Vardri was saying. "Buthow can I leave you here alone with these devils? It makes me cold tothink of it. "

"You'll leave me because I shall be safer alone. You _must_ see that, _mon ami_. " She clung to him, putting up her face towards his. Everyart of womanhood must be used to weave a spell to send him from her andto save him. "Will you not do as I ask you?"

"I'll do anything in the world for you, " the boy broke out eagerly;"I'd have my hand cut off to save you a minute's pain. "

"I know, _mon ami_. And this is such a little thing, and so muchdepends upon its being done quickly. "

What was that? A step on the ladder? She could not control a violentstart. No, it was only a creaking rung, a stamp from one of the mules. 

"But you haven't broken your promise to me. You swear to come awaywith me soon?"

"To-morrow if you will. Once the letters are burnt we are almost safe. Only one day more. It doesn't make any difference. "

"It does to me, _mon petit_. Every moment, every hour without you istime wasted. "

"But you'll go, dear, before Sobrenski sees us together?"

"My sweet, if it is for your good, of course I will go. You're rightabout the letters; I ought to have known it wasn't safe to keep them. As you say, they've got no circumstantial evidence if those aredestroyed, and it only means a few more hours' delay in our gettingoff. I'll go, darling. I'll get down the hills in no time. It's thebest horse of the lot, that one outside. But before I go give meyourself for a few minutes. "

Arithelli let him lead her unresisting towards the corner of the hut, and lay her gently back upon a truss of hay that he had covered with acloak. She had not the strength to deny him their last few minutestogether. Every fibre in her own nature, the lover, the mother, thechild, were all crying out for him. How gentle he had been, how he hadalways cared for her. No one had ever touched her like this before, spoken to her in this caressing voice. Emile had been kind in his way, but he had been always rough. Her own emotions had always lain burieddeeply, and now they had been called to life she longed for the naturalexpression of her love through the medium of physical things, by wordand touch. 

"Now for my reward, " Vardri said. "I want to take your hair down. "

Arithelli bent her head towards him without speaking and he drew thepins, and undid the braid with deft fingers, spreading it out till itcovered her as with a veil. 

"If only I could paint you! How beautiful you are to-night, but howstill and cold! Fatalité, tell me you love me a little, _mon coeur_!"

She put her arms round his neck, laying her cheek against his. "_Monami_, I love you!"

He held her in his arms as one holds a child, rocking her to and fro. "_Voilà chérie_!" he whispered. "After to-morrow I shall have youalways, I shall never let you go again. My dream is coming true. "

Arithelli listened with dry eyes and an aching heart. She was pastcrying, and her brain felt curiously reasonable and alert. She couldnot send him from her at once, yet with every passing second Death drewstealthily nearer and nearer. Time swept on relentless and inflexible. 

"Perhaps you will be disappointed in me one of these days, find medepressing and full of moods. I've always been so lonely, you know, till I met you. _Je suis une âme detachée_. "

"Never again while I'm alive! I think of you and with you. When youare happy I know it, and when you are miserable I know it too. Fatalité! Fatalité! believe that I don't want anything in return. I'll wait on you, work for you, lie, starve, steal, do anything. Ionly want to know you're there, to have the right to serve you, to feelyou don't hate me. I couldn't go on living it I lost you. Since thefirst day I saw you at the Hippodrome you've haunted me. I led DonJuan down to the entrance to the ring. You don't remember? How shouldyou? I've never forgotten! You smiled and thanked me. You looked sostrange beside Estelle and those other women. "

He was kneeling beside her, his lips pressed against the hollow of herarm, from which the loose red sleeve had slipped back to above theelbow. Under his passionate words Arithelli sat like a beingentranced, unseeing, unhearing. The inscrutable eyes set in the rigidface gave her the likeness to some carven thing. 

"Fatalité! Fatalité!"

The sound of his voice came to her as from a distance. She rousedherself, and tried to smile. "_Mon ami_, I'm a little tired to-night, a little nervous; I was thinking about the letters! I shall feel somuch safer when they're burnt. "

"I'll go at once--just one moment. Arithelli, you do believe that Ilove you, and that I want nothing? See, I'll not even touch your handif it doesn't please you. "

The soft hand was laid gently on his. "But if it _does_ please me, _mon camarade_--"

"_Dieu_! How sweet you are! But don't call me '_Camarade_, ' _monpetit_. Those wolves above call each other that!"

"I won't, if you hate it. Yes, that's really love to give all and takenothing. " Arithelli spoke dreamily. "Emile made me sing to him beforehe went away; you remember 'L'Adieu' of Schubert? He loved it. 

 "La mort est une amie, Qui rend la liberté. "

"C'est bien vrai ca! I used to sing it without thinking at one time. How alike all those songs are. Always Death;--Death and Liberty!"

"Don't talk of those things, dear. It's going to be Life for both ofus--after to-morrow. "

"I was thinking of poor Emile. "

"He was always fond of you. He'll be glad when he hears you're marriedand safe. "

"Yes, he'll be glad. Don't talk any more for a minute, dear, then justsay _au revoir_ to me and go as quickly as you can. I want to bequiet. It's good to be loved. How gentle you are! Emile was alwaysso rough when he touched me. "

Vardri hung over her, caressing her with infinite tenderness. Of allmen in the world he was surely the happiest to have known this sweetand womanly Arithelli, the Arithelli that no one else had ever seen. He kissed the heavy, closed lids and stroked back the hair from herforehead. 

A faint intoxicating odour of jasmine hovered about her, for she wasEastern in her love of perfumes. The stifling, dirty hut became aParadise while she lay thus in his arms. 

Once again they kissed and clung together. Though Arithelli's lipsburnt, they scorched with the fires of despair rather than with thoseof passion. 

In silence Vardri helped her to her feet, and they walked together tothe door. 

"You'll come to me to-morrow, " Arithelli said. 

"To-morrow we shall be safe. We'll be out of this hell altogether inanother day or two, _à la bonne heure_! You're not afraid, Fatalité?"

"I shan't be--when the letters are safe. Take care of yourself, _monami, et à bientot_!"

"_Mon Dieu_! what pluck you have! How I love you for it! Go back andrest, dear, till those brutes come down. Give me your hand again, Fatalité, _bien aimée! gardez-vous, mais gardez-vous_!"

She answered him steadily. "_À demain_. _Adieu, mon ami_. Ride asquickly as you can, but lead your horse for the first few minutes. "

CHAPTER XXIII

 "Le jeu est fait, rien ne vas plus!"

He was gone, and Arithelli was back in the hut again, and now the worstof it all was still to come. If Vardri was to have a fair start shemust wait out the hour alone, realising every moment of the time whatawaited her at the end of it. 

A mad impulse seized her to rush up the steps to the loft, interruptthe meeting, defy them all and boast how she had schemed her lover'sescape, and laugh at them and their plots, goad them into shooting herat once and finishing it all quickly. She felt that she could notendure any more suspense and strain. Anything would be better thanthis interminable, awful waiting in the semi-darkness and loneliness, with neither friend nor lover at hand, no single human to take her partor defend her. Emile had gone and now Vardri, and she must faceeverything alone. If she waited Vardri would have perhaps half anhour's grace and while they were dealing with her it would give himstill another few minutes, and every minute counted. 

She fought down the temptation, and began to move about, speaking tothe mules and, horses, taking down saddles and bridles. She must notbe too quiet, or they might suspect something, and come down sooner tosee if she were still there. She must pretend to be busy, play out theplay to the end. 

She unhooked the lantern from its nail and placed it on the ground, andthen stood still again to listen. 

The smothered hum of voices grew louder overhead. It stopped suddenly, and she could only hear Sobrenski's slow, incisive tones. No doubtthey were listening to him as to one inspired while he preached hisgospel of destruction. Arithelli shivered, pressing her hands over herears that she might shut out the sound of that hated voice that hadbidden her outrage her sex. 

She stumbled towards the bed of hay, still warm with the impress of herown figure, and flung herself upon it face downwards and lay therewhispering to herself over and over again Vardri's name as one whispersa charm. 

Would he forget her one of these days and marry someone else? Had itbeen real, anything of this that she had lived through during thesemonths in Spain? Was she still that same "Arithelli of the Hippodrome"who had come gaily into Barcelona with her ridiculous dresses and herbelief in herself and her career? She had known an hour of love andpassion, and that had been worth all the rest Emile had always told herthat people were not meant to be happy long _ici-bas_. She must paynow for her hour. The gods were angry and must have a sacrifice. 

After she had been out in Barcelona only a week, Emile had taken her toone of the gambling-hells of the place, where the lights and mirrorsand gilding hurt her tired eyes, and the croupiers called incessantlythrough the strained silence, "_Le jeu est fait_. _Rien ne vas plus_!"

It was like that with her now, "_Le jeu est fait_. " How that sentenceheat in her brain! She wondered if she were becoming delirious. Thenshe was on her feet, and her hand went to the Browning pistol at herbelt. Sobrenski's figure had appeared at the top of the ladder. Hewas shading his eyes with his hand, and peering forward into the gloom. Only one of them there! The girl or Vardri, which was it?

Then the whole place was in darkness, for Arithelli had overturned andextinguished the solitary lamp. The excited whinny of a horse mingledwith the sound of two shots fired in rapid succession, a rustling noiseamong the hay, a groan, and silence. Before he set foot on the ladderSobrenski shouted to the rest of the conspirators to bring a light. Hedid not wait to look at the prone figure, but made straight for thedoor. His business it was first to see whether his quarry were stillin sight. 

All the other men were hustling each other in a hasty descent. "_Quediable_!" one of them said. "What is it now? A spy?"

The man who had lowered Arithelli from the window of the house in theCalle de Pescadores, made his way first to where Arithelli lay andstood beside her. He could only see dimly the outline of a figurewhich might have been either that of a man or woman. "Bring a lighthere, " Valdez called impatiently. "Which of them is it?" Though hewas a revolutionist he was still a human being, and he had always beenas sorry for her as he had dared allow himself to be, and he hoped itwas not the girl. Another man came up carrying a lantern, and flashedthe light on what rested motionless at their feet. Arithelli lay onher face as she had fallen. Her hair streamed over her shoulders andmingled with the dark folds of the cloak. The hand that still held thepistol was flung wide. 

"It's not Vardri, " the other man said. "Is it--?" Sobrenski cutacross the question. "A traitor, " he said. "What does it matter aboutthe name? Get back all of you and see to the horses. There should betwo of them and there's only one here. We've got to find the otherone. "

With a sudden brusque movement Valdez knelt down, turned the limp bodyover, and rested the head upon his knee. "_Pardieu_!" he ejaculated ashe let it fall gently back. "It's Fatalité!"