Front matter (continued 4)

"Listen to me, Benilo,—mark well my words. What I have been, you know: the beloved, the adored wife of a man, who would have carried me through life's storms under the shelter of his love,—a man, who would have shed the last drop of his life's blood for Ginevra,—that was. For two years we lived in happiness. I had begged him never to lift the veil which shrouded my birth,—a wish he respected, a promise he kept. In the field and at court he pursued the even tenor of his way,—happy and content with my love. Then there crept into our home a hypocrite, a liar, a fiend, who could mock the devils in hell to scorn. He stands there,—Benilo, his name,—a foul thing, who shrank from nothing to gain his ends. Some fiend revealed to him the awful secret of Ginevra's birth, a secret which he used to draw her step by step from the man she loved, to perpetrate a deceit, the cunning of which would put the devils to blush. He promised to restore to her what is her own by right of her birth. He roused in her all the evil which ran riot in her blood, and when she had given herself to him, he revealed himself the lying fiend he was. Stung by the furies of remorse, which haunted her night and day,—in her despair the woman made her love the prize, wherewith to purchase that for which she had broken the holiest ties. But those she made happy were beasts,—enjoying her favour, giving nothing in return. My heart is sick of it,—sick of this sham, sick of this baseness. Heaven once vouchsafed me a sinner's glimpse of paradise, of a home of purity and peace where indeed I might have been a queen,—a queen so different from the one who rules a gilded charnel-house."

Benilo had listened in silent amazement. He failed to sound the drift of Theodora's speech. The whip-lash burned on his cheek. Her sudden dejection gave him back some of his former courage.

"I believe Theodora is discovering that she once possessed a conscience," he said with a sardonic smile. "How does the violent change agree with you?" he drawled insolently, for the first time raising his eyes to hers.

She appeared not to heed the question, but nodding wearily she said:

"I am not myself to-night. Despite all which has happened, I stand here a suppliant before the man who has ruined my life. I have something else to say."

"Then I fear you have played your game and lost," he said brutally.

Theodore interrupted his speech with a gesture, and when she spoke, a shade of sadness touched her halting tones.

"Last night he came to me in my dream.—I will never forget the expression with which he regarded me. I am weary of it all,—weary unto death."

"Unfortunately our wager does not concern itself with sleep-walking—though it seems your only chance of luring your over-scrupulous mate to your bower."

The woman started.

"Surely, you do not mean to hold me to the wager?"

He smiled sardonically.

"Considering the risk I run in this affair—why not? Eckhardt is a man of action—so is Benilo,—who has performed the rare miracle of compelling the grave to return to his arms Ginevra, a queen indeed,—of her kind."

Surely some extraordinary change had taken place in the bosom of the woman before him. She received the thrust without parrying it.

"I see," he continued after a brief pause, "Eckhardt proves too mighty a rock, even for Theodora to move!"

"His will is strong—but all night in his lonely cell he called Ginevra's name."

"You are well informed. Why not take the veil yourself,—since a life of serene placidity seems so suddenly to your taste?"

"And where is it written that I shall not?" she questioned, looking him full in the eye. Benilo winced. If she would but quarrel. He felt insecure in her present mood.

"Here—on the tablets of my memory, where a certain wager is recorded," he replied.

She turned upon him angrily.

"It is you who forced me to it against my will.—I took up your gauntlet, stung by your biting ridicule, goaded by your insults to a weak and senseless folly."

"Then you acknowledge yourself vanquished?"

"I am not vanquished. What I undertake, I carry through—if I wish to carry it through."

"It has to my mind ceased to be a matter of choice with you," drawled the Chamberlain. "In three days Eckhardt's fate will be sealed,—as far as this world of ours is concerned. You see, your chances are small and you have no time to lose."

"Day after to-morrow—holy Virgin—so soon?" gasped Theodora.

"You have inadvertently called on one whose calls you have not of late returned," sneered the Chamberlain, with insolent nonchalance.

"Day after to-morrow," Theodora repeated, stroking her brow with one white hand. "Day after to-morrow!"

"Do not despair," Benilo drawled sardonically. "Much can happen in two days."

She did not seem to hear him. Her thoughts seemed to roam far away. Then they returned to earth. For a moment she studied the man before her in silence, then dropping the whip, she stretched out her hand to him.

"Release me from this wager," she pleaded, "and all shall be forgotten and forgiven."

He did not touch the hand. It fell.

"Theodora," he whispered hoarsely. "You will never know how I love you! I am not as evil as I seem. But there are moments when I lose control and madness chokes my better self, in the hopeless hunt for your love. Theodora—bury the past! Give up this baleful existence—live with me again."

She laughed a shrill laugh.

"Your concubine! And you have the courage to ask this?"

"You know I love the very ground you tread on."

"Is that all you have to tell me?"

"Is not that enough?"

"No—it is not enough!" she replied with flashing eyes. "Between us stand the barriers of eternity!"

He paled.

"Do not dismiss me like this. It is far more cruel than you know. If you kill my hope, you leave me a prey to the devils of jealousy and madness,—the evil things of your own creation! Come back to me! I only ask the love you gave me once,—the love you thought you gave me,—a grain, a crumb."

She turned her face away.

"Never again! Never again!"

The fevered blood raced swiftly from his cheek. For a moment he watched her in silence, his eyes like slits in his hard, pale face, then he turned on his heel and laughed aloud.

A shudder she could not repress crept over the woman's soft, white skin.

"Benilo!" she called to him. He turned and came slowly back.

"Benilo," she continued nervously, "release me from this wager! I cannot go on—I cannot. If he is bent upon leaving the world, let him retire in peace and do not stir the misery which lies couchant in the hidden depths of his soul. He has suffered enough,—more than enough,—more than should fall to one man's lot. Do not drive me to madness,—I cannot do it—I cannot."

"Your thoughts are only for him. For me you have nothing," he replied fiercely.

"I owe him everything—nothing to you!"

"Then go to him, to release you,—I will not!"

"I cannot do it! Be merciful!"

The Chamberlain bowed and answered mockingly.

"It rests with you!"

"With me?"

"Acknowledge your defeat!"

"What do you mean?" she asked with rising fear.

Benilo shrugged his shoulders.

"We made a wager—the loser pays."

"But the forfeit?" she cried in terror. "You would not claim—you would not chain me to you for ever?"

He regarded her with a slow triumphant smile and answered cruelly:

"Forever? At one time the thought had less terrors for you!"

She disregarded his sarcasm, continuing in the same plaintive tone of entreaty, which was music in Benilo's ear.

"But surely—you do not mean it! You would not profit by a woman's angry folly. I was mad,—insane,—I knew not what I said, what I did! Benilo, I will admit defeat,—failure,—anything,—only release me from this fearful wager. I ask you as a man,—have pity on me!"

"What pity have you lavished on me?"

"Were you deserving of pity?"

"My love—"

"Your love! What is your love, but the lust of the wild beast?" she exclaimed, flying into a passion, but instantly checking herself.

"Think of it, Benilo," she urged in desperation, "I could conquer, if I would. Once Eckhardt lays eyes on me, I can lead him to my will. Never can I forget the look he gave me when I faced him before my own tomb in the churchyard of San Pancrazio. Never will that wild expression of despair and longing, which spoke to me from his mute eyes, fade from my memory. Whether he believed that I was a pale, mocking phantom—what he imagined that I was, I know not—I could win him, if I would."

"Then win him!" snarled Benilo, through his straight thin lips.

"No! No!" she cried piteously. "Eckhardt is noble. He believed in me,—he trusted me. He believes me dead. He has no inkling of the vile thing I am! I listened to his prayer to the Virgin—once more he asked to see the face of the woman he had loved above everything on earth. And you ask me to tear the veil from his eyes and drag him down into the sloth and slime of my existence! His faith falls upon me like a knotted scourge,—his love—a blow upon my guilty head. He gave me life-long love in payment for a lie; he gave me love unwavering and true beyond the grave. When I think of it all—I long to die of shame! You caused me to believe he was dead,—that he had fallen defending the Eastern March. I thanked Heaven for the message; I envied him his eternal rest. It was one of your black deceits,—perhaps one of your mildest. Let it pass! But again to enter into his life—No! no!" she moaned. "By the God of Love—I will not!"

She gave a wild moan and covered her face with her hands. Benilo looked on in silence, scarce crediting the proof of sight and sound. Once—twice he moved his lips, ere speech would flow.

"You have but to choose," he said. "Come to me—my wife or concubine,—I care not which, and I pledge you my word, he shall die! I have but spared him until I sounded your humour!"

She shivered, and raised her hands as if to conjure away some apparition.

"No—no—never!" she gasped. "You would not dare! You would not dare! You are but frightening me! Have pity on me and let me go!"

"I do not detain you! Go if you will, but remember the wager!"

Her head drooped, while Benilo drew nearer, bending his exultant eyes on her wilted form, and in the passion which mastered him, he grasped her wrists and drew her hands apart, then kissed her passionately upon the lips.

With a hunted cry, she wrenched herself away, and leaping backward, faced him, her voice choked with panting fury:

"Fool! Devil! Coward! Could you not respect a woman's grief for the degradation you have forced upon her? Dog! I might have paid your forfeit had I died of shame! But now—I will not!" She snapped her fingers in his face. "This for your wager! This for an oath to you—the vermin of the earth!"

Benilo took a backward step, awed by the flaming madness in her eyes.

"Take care!" he growled threateningly.

"The vermin that crawls in the dust, I say," she reiterated panting, "the dust—the dust! Better a thousand deaths than the brute love you offer! Between us it is a duel to the death! I will win him back,—if I have to barter my evil beauty for eternal damnation,—if our entwined souls burn to crisp in purgatory,—I will win him back, revealing myself to him the foul thing I am,—and by way of contrast sing your praises, my Lord Benilo—believe me,—the devils themselves shall be wroth with jealousy at my song."

There was something in the woman's eye, which staggered the Chamberlain.

"You would not dare!" he exclaimed aghast.

"I dare everything! You have challenged me and now your coward soul quails before the issue!—You would have me recede,—go! I've done with you!"

"Not yet," Benilo replied, with his sinister drawl—edging nearer the woman. "I have something else to say to you! Your words are but air! You have measured your strength with mine and failed! Go to your old time love! Tell him you found a conscience,—tell him where you found it,—and see if he allows you leisure to confess all your other peccadilloes, trifling though they be! Still—the risk is equal. I have a mind to take the chance! Once more, Theodora,—confess yourself defeated,—acknowledge that the champion is beyond your reach—be mine—and the wager shall be wiped out!"

She recoiled from him, raising her hands in unfeigned horror and cried:

"Never—never."

Benilo shrugged his shoulders.

"As you will!"

"Then you would have me make him untrue to his vows? You would have me add this sin too, to my others?"

He laughed sardonically, while he feasted his eyes on her great beauty.

"It will not add much to the burden, I ween."

She gave him one look, in which fear mingled with contempt and turned to go, when with a spring, stealthy as the panther's, he overtook her, and pinning down her arms, bent back the proud head and once more pressed his lips upon the woman's.

With a cry like a wounded animal she released herself, pushed him back with the strength of her vigorous youth and spat in his face.

"Do you still desire me?" she hissed with flaming eyes.

He sprang at her with a furious oath, but his outstretched fingers grasped the air. Theodora had vanished. Recoiling from the towering forms of the Africans, who guarded the corridor leading to her apartments, Benilo staggered blindly back into the dark deserted halls. Here he found himself face to face with Hezilo the harper, who seemed to rise out of the shadows like some ill-omened phantom.

"If you waver now," the harper spoke with his strange unimpassioned voice,—"you are lost!"

The Chamberlain stopped before the harper's arresting words.

"What can I do?" he groaned with a deep breath. "My soul half sinks beneath the mighty burden I have heaped upon it, it quails before the fatal issue."

"You have measured your strength with the woman's," replied the harper. "She has felt the conquering whip-hand. Onward! Unflinchingly! Relentlessly! She dare not face the final issue!"

"I need new courage, as the dread hour approaches!" Benilo replied, his breath coming fast between his set teeth. "And from your words, your looks, I drink it!"

"Then take it from this also: If now you fail hardly the grave would be a refuge."

Benilo peered up at his strange counsellor.

"Man or devil,—who are you to read the depths of the soul of man?" he queried amazed, vainly endeavouring to penetrate the vizor, which shaded the harper's face.

"Perhaps neither," a voice answered which seemed to come from the remotest part of the great hall, yet it was Hezilo the harper, who spoke, "Perchance some spirit, permitted to return to earth to goad man to his final and greatest fall."

"It shall be as you say!" Benilo spoke, rousing himself. "Onward! Relentlessly! Unflinchingly!"

He staggered from the hall.

"Perhaps I too should have flagged and failed, had not one thought whispered hope to me in the long and solitary hours which fill up the interstices of time," muttered the harper, gazing after the Chamberlain's vanishing form.

The voices died to silence. The pale light of dawn peered into the deserted hall.

CHAPTER XIV

THE PHANTOM AT THE SHRINE

t last the evening had come, when Eckhardt was for ever to retire from the world, to spend the remainder of his days in prayers and penances, within the dismal walls of the cloister. The pontiff himself was to officiate at the high ceremony, which was to close the last chapter in the great general's life. Daylight was fading fast, and the faint light, which still glimmered through the western windows of St. Peter's Basilica had long since lost its sunset ruddiness and was little more than a pale shadow. The candles, their mighty rival departed, blazed higher now in merry fitfulness, delighting to play in grotesque imagery over the monkish faces, which haunted the gloom.

One end of the Basilica was now luminous with the pale glow of innumerable slender tapers of every length, ranged in gradated order round the altar. Their mellow radiance drove the gloom a quarter of the way down the cathedral. The massive bronze doors at the farther end were still shut and locked. The only way of entering the church was through the sacristy, by way of the north transepts, to which only the monks had access. No sound that should ring out within these mighty walls to-night could reach the ears of those who might be in the streets without.

Meanwhile the quiescent echoes of the vast Basilica were disturbed by fitful murmurs from the Sacristy. Far in the distance, from the north transept, might be distinguished light footfalls. Slowly a double file of monks entered the church, walking to the rhythm of a subdued processional chant, which rose through the sombre shadows of the aisles. At the same time the great portals of the Basilica were thrown open to the countless throngs, which had been waiting without and which now, like waters released from the impediment of a dam, rushed into the immense area, waiting to receive them.

The rumour of Eckhardt's impending consecration had added no little to the desire of the Romans to be present at a spectacle such as had not within the memory of man fallen to their lot to behold, and it seemed as if all Rome had flocked to the ancient Basilica to witness the great and touching ordeal at which the youthful Pontiff himself was to officiate. Seemingly interminable processions of monks, bearing huge waxen tapers, of choristers, acolytes and incense-bearers, with a long array of crosses and other holy emblems continued to pour into the Basilica. The priests were in their bright robes of high-ceremony. The choristers chanted a psalm as they passed on and the incense bearers swung their silver censers.

The Pontiff's face was a rarely lovely one to look upon; it was that of a mere youth. His chin was smooth as any woman's and the altar cloth was not as white as his delicate hands. The halo of golden hair, which encircled his tonsure, gave him the appearance of a saint. Marvellously, indeed, did stole, mitre and staff become the delicate face and figure of Bruno of Carinthia, and if there was some incongruity between the spun gold of his fair hair and the severity of the mitre, which surrounded it, there was none in all that assembly to note it.

At the door, awaiting the pontifical train, stood the venerable Gerbert of Aurillac, impressive in his white and gold dalmatica against the red robes of the chapter. Preceded by two cardinals the Pontiff mounted the steps, entering through the great bronze portals of the Basilica, which poured a wave of music and incense out upon the hushed piazza. Then they closed again, engulfing the brilliant procession.

The chant ceased and the monks silently ranged themselves in a close semi-circle about the high-altar. There was a brief and impressive silence, while the deep, melodious voice of the Archbishop of Rheims was raised in prayer. The monks chanted the Agnus Dei, then a deep hush of expectation fell upon the multitudes.

The faint echoes of approaching footsteps now broke the intense silence which pervaded the immense area of the Basilica. Accompanied by two monks, Eckhardt slowly strode down the aisle, which the reverential tread of millions had already worn to unevenness. In an obscured niche he had waited their signal, racked by doubts and fears, and less convinced than ever that the final step he was about to take would lead to the desired goal. From his station he could distinguish faint silhouettes of the glittering spars in the vaulting, and the sculptured chancel, twisted and beaten into fantastic shapes and the line of ivory white Apostles. As he approached the monks gathered closely round the chancel, where, under the pontifical canopy, stood the golden chair of the Vicar of Christ.

Eckhardt did not raise his eyes. Once only, as in mute questioning, did his gaze meet that of Gregory, then he knelt before the altar. His ardent desire was about to be fulfilled. As this momentous time approached, Eckhardt's hesitation in taking the irrevocable step seemed to diminish—and gradually to vanish. He was even full of impatient joy. Never did bridegroom half so eagerly count the hours to his wedding, as did the German leader the moments which were for ever to relieve him of that gnawing pain that consumed his soul. In the broken fitful slumber of the preceding night he had seen himself chanting the mass. To be a monk seemed to him now the last and noblest refuge from the torments which gnawed the strings of his heart. At this moment he would have disdained the estate of an emperor or king. There was no choice left now. The bridge leading into the past was destroyed and Eckhardt awaited his anointment more calmly.

Gregory's face was grave and to a close observer it would have appeared to withhold approval from that which added greater glory to the Church, as if anticipating proportionately greater detriment for the state. As Eckhardt knelt in silent prayer, all but entranced in religious ecstasy, he noted not the nearness of Benilo, who watched him like a tiger from the half gloom of his station. The hush in the Basilica was well-nigh oppressive. The Romans, who had flocked hither to witness the uncommon sight of a victorious leader abandoning the life at a court for the cassock of a monk, and perhaps inwardly calculating the immense consequences of a step so grave, waited breathlessly until that step should be accomplished. Those whose sympathies lay with the imperial party were filled with grave misgivings, for if Eckhardt's example found imitators in the German host, the cause of the emperor would grow weaker in proportion as the prestige of the Romans and the monks increased.

The benediction had been pronounced. The Communion in both kind had been partaken. The palms of Eckhardt had been anointed with consecrated oil, and finally the celebration of the Holy Rite had been offered up in company with the officiating Cardinal.

It was done. There remained little more than the cutting of the tonsure, and from the world, which had once claimed him—from the world to which he still unconsciously clung with fevered pulses,—Eckhardt was to vanish for ever. As the officiating Cardinal of San Gregorio approached the kneeling general, the latter chanced to raise his head. A deadly pallor overspread his features as his eyes gazed beyond the ecclesiastic at one of the great stone pillars, half of which was wrapt in dense gloom. The ceremony, so splendid a moment ago, seemed to fade before the aspect of those terrible eyes, which peered into his own from a woman's face, pale as death. Throughout the church darkness seemed suddenly to reign, The candles paled in their sconces of gold before the glare of those eyes, calculated to make or mar the destinies of man.

Against the incense saturated gloom, her beauty shone out like a heavenly revelation; she seemed herself the fountain of light, to give it rather than to receive it. For a moment Eckhardt lowered his gaze, little doubting but that the apparition was some new temptation of the fiend, to make him waver at the decisive moment. The ceremony proceeded. But when after a few moments, not being able to withstand the lure, he looked up again, he saw her glittering in a bright penumbra, which dazzled him like the burning disk of the sun. And as he gazed upon the strange apparition, tall with the carriage of a goddess, her eyes darting rays like stars, winging straight for his heart—and she the very image of his dead wife, just as she had appeared to him on that memorable night in the churchyard of San Pancrazio,—he hardly knew whether the flame that lighted those orbs came from heaven to strengthen his resolve, or from hell, to foil it. But from devil or angel assuredly it came.

Her white teeth shone in the terrible smile, with which she regarded him. The smooth alabaster skin of her throat glistened with a pearly sheen. Her white robe, falling from her head to her feet, straight as the winding sheet of death, matched the marble pallor of her complexion, and her hands, seemingly holding the shroud in place, were as white as fresh fallen snow.

As Eckhardt continued to gaze upon her, he felt the floodgates of his memory re-open; he felt the portals of the past, which had seemed locked and barred, swing back upon their hinges, grating deep down in his soul. And with the sight of the phantom standing before him, so life-like, so beautiful, all the mad longing bounded back into his heart. Gripped by a terrible pain, he heard neither the chant, nor the words of the Cardinal. Everything around him seemed to fade, but the terrible being still held his gaze with those deep and marvellous eyes, that had all the brightness and life of the sapphire seas.

Eckhardt felt he was being carried far from the sphere of the cloister into a world at whose gates new desires were knocking. While he mechanically muttered the responses to the queries, which the Cardinal put to him, his whole soul began to rise in arms against the words his tongue was uttering. A secret force seemed to drag them from him, he felt the gaze of the thousands weighing upon him like a cope of lead. Yet it seemed that no one in all that vast assembly heeded the strange apparition, and if there appeared any hesitancy in Eckhardt's responses, or a strange restlessness in his demeanour, it was charged to the consciousness of the momentous change, the responsibility of the irrevocable step, crushing life, ambition and hope.

But the countenance of the mysterious apparition did not change as the ceremony progressed. Steadfastly, with tender and caressing gaze she seemed to regard him, her whole soul in her straining eyes. With an effort, which might have moved a mountain, Eckhardt strove to cry out, that he would never be a monk. It was in vain. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. Not even by sign could he resist. Wide awake, he seemed to be in the throes of one of those nightmares, wherein one cannot utter the words on which life itself depends. The apparition seemed instinctively to read and to comprehend the torture, which racked Eckhardt's breast. And the glance she cast upon him seemed so fraught with the echoes of despair, that it froze his heart to the core.

Was it indeed but an apparition?

Was this terrible semblance to his dead wife more than a mere accident?

The chalice, with the blood of Christ, trembled in Eckhardt's hand. He was about to pass it to his lips. But try as he might, he could not avert his gaze. Those terrible eyes, the marble calm of the face of his dead wife seemed to draw him onward,—onward.—Forgotten was church, and ceremony, and vow; forgotten everything before that phantom from beyond the grave. It held him with a power which mocked to scorn every effort to escape its spell. The apparition lured him on, as almost imperceptibly it began to recede, without once abandoning its gaze.

A wild shriek re-echoed through the high-vaulted dome of the Basilica of St. Peter. It was the shriek of a madman, who has escaped his guards, but fears to be overtaken. The golden chalice fell from Eckhardt's nerveless grasp, spilling its contents over the feet of the Cardinal of San Gregorio who raised his hands in unfeigned dismay and muttered an anathema. Then, with a white, wet face, Eckhardt staggered blindly to his feet, groping, with outstretched arms, toward the apparition—which seemed to recede farther and farther away into the gloom.

The hush of death had fallen upon the assembly. The monk Cyprianus raised aloft his arms, as though invoking divine interposition and exorcising the fiend. His eyes, the eyes of the assembled thousands and the stare of Benilo, the Chamberlain, followed the direction of Eckhardt's outstretched arms. Suddenly he was seen to pause before one of the massive pillars, pale as death, mumbling strange words, accompanied by stranger gestures. Then he gazed about like one waking from a terrible dream—the spot where the apparition had mocked him but a moment ago was deserted! Had it been but another temptation of the fiend?

But no! It was impossible. This woman had made him utterly her own; her glance had sufficed to snap asunder the fetters of a self-imposed yoke, as though her will, powerful even after death, had suddenly passed upon him. Though he saw her not at the present moment, he had but to close his eyes, to see her as distinctly as if she were still present in the body. And in that moment Eckhardt felt all the horrors of the path he was about to choose, the dead and terrible aspect of the life he was about to espouse. To be a monk, to crawl till death in the chill shade of the cloister, to see none save living spectres, to watch by the nameless corpses of folks unknown, to wear his raiment for his coffin's pall—a terrible dread seized him. One brief hour spent before an altar and some gabbled words were about to cut him off for ever from the society of the living. With his own hand he was about to seal the stone upon his tomb, and turn the key in the lock of the door of Life.

Like a whirlwind these thoughts passed through Eckhardt's brain. Then he imagined once more that he saw the eyes of his dead wife gazing upon him, burning into the very depths of his soul. What made their aspect so terrible to him, he was not just then in the frame to analyze. Some mysterious force, which had left the sweetness of her face unmarred, seemed to have imparted something to her eyes that inspired him with an unaccountable dread.

As he paused thus before the pillar, pressing his icy hands to his fevered temples, vainly groping for a solution, vainly endeavouring to break the fetters which bound his will and seemed to crush his strength, there broke upon his ears the loud command of the officiating monk, to return and bid the Fiend desist. These words broke the deadly spell which had benumbed his senses and caused him to remain riveted to the spot, where the phantom had hovered. His sunken eyes glared as those of a madman, as he slowly turned in response to the monk's behest. The hot breath came panting from between his parched lips. Then, without heeding the ceremony, without heeding the monks or the spectators who had flocked hither to witness his consecration, Eckhardt dashed through the circle of which he had formed the central figure and, ere the amazed spectators knew what happened or the monks could stem his precipitate flight, the chief of the imperial hosts rushed out of the church in his robes of consecration and vanished from sight.

So quickly, so unexpectedly did it all happen, that even the officiating Cardinal seemed completely paralyzed by the suddenness of Eckhardt's flight. There was no doubt in the mind of Cyprianus that the Margrave had gone mad and his whispered orders sent two monks speeding after the demented neophyte. Deep, ominous silence hovered over the vast area of the Basilica. It seemed as if the very air was fraught with deep portent, and ominous forebodings of impending danger filled the hearts of the assembled thousands. The people knelt in silent prayer and breathless expectation. Would Eckhardt return? Would the ceremony proceed?

Among all those, who had so eagerly watched the uncommon spectacle of whose crowning glory they were about to see themselves deprived, there was but one to whom the real cause of the scene which had just come to a close, was no mystery. Benilo alone knew the cause of Eckhardt's flight. To the last moment he had triumphed, convinced that no temptation could turn from his chosen path a mind so stern as Eckhardt's. But when the effect of the mysterious vision upon the kneeling general became apparent, when his restlessness grew with every moment, up to the terrible climax, accentuated by his madman's yell, when, unmindful of the monk's admonition—he saw him rush out of the church in his consecrated robes—then Benilo knew that the general would not return. For the time all the insolent boastfulness of his nature forsook him and he shivered as one seized with a sudden chill. Without awaiting what was to come, unseen and unnoticed amidst the all-pervading consternation, the Chamberlain rushed out of the Basilica by the same door through which Eckhardt had gained the open.

Under his canopy sat the Vice-Gerent of Christ, surrounded by the consecrated cardinals and bishops and the monks of the various orders. Without an inkling of the true cause prompting Eckhardt's precipitate flight Gregory had witnessed the terrible scene, which had just come to a close. But inwardly he rejoiced. For only when every opposition to Eckhardt's mad desire had appeared fruitless, had the Pontiff acquiesced in granting to him the special dispensation, which shortened the time of his novitiate to the limit of three days.

But it was not a matter for the moment, for Gregory himself was to partake of the Communion and the monk Cyprianus, who was to perform the holy office, a tribute to the order whose superior he was, had just blessed the host. In his consecrated hand the wine was to turn into the blood of Christ, Gregory had just partaken of the holy wafer. Now the monk placed the golden tube in the golden chalice and, drawing his cowl deeply over his forehead, passed the other end of the tube to the Pontiff.

Gregory placed the golden tube to his lips, and as he sipped the wine, changed into blood, the two cardinals on duty approached the sacred throne, a torch in one hand, a small bundle of tow in the other. According to custom they set the tow on fire.

Again the unison chant of the monks resounded; the assembled thousands lying prostrate in prayer.

Suddenly there arose a strange bustle round the pontifical canopy. Suppressed murmurs broke the silence. Monks were to be seen rushing hither and thither. Gregory had fainted! The monk Cyprianus seemed vainly endeavouring to revive him. For a moment the crowds remained in awe-struck silence, then, as if the grim spectre of Death had visibly appeared amongst them, the terror-stricken worshippers rushed out of the Basilica of St. Peter and soon the terrible rumour was rife in the streets of Rome. Pope Gregory the Fifth was dying.

CHAPTER XV

THE DEATH WATCH

he sun had sunk to rest and the noises of the day were dying out, one by one. The deep hush of the hour of dusk settled once more over the city, shaken to its very depths by the terrible catastrophe and upheaved by the fanaticism of the monks, who roused the populace to a paroxysm of frenzy and fear which gave way to pandemonium itself, when the feelings of the masses, strung to their utmost tension, leaped into the opposite extreme. Crescentius had remained shut up in Castel San Angelo, but the monk Cyprianus could be seen stalking through the city at the hour of dusk, and whosoever met him crossed himself devoutly, and prayed to have time for confession, when the end was nigh.

The importance of the impending change impressed itself upon every mind. The time when worldly power alone could hope to successfully cope with the crying evils of a fast decaying age, of a world, grown old and stale and rotten, upon which had not yet fallen the beam of the Renaissance, was not yet at hand, and the fatal day of Canossa had not yet illumined the century with its lurid glare.

Therefore Otto had chosen Bruno, the friend of his boyhood, for the highest honours in Christendom, Bruno, one in mind, one in soul with himself, and the Conclave had by its vote ratified the imperial choice. But Bruno himself had not wished the honour. While he shared the high ideals of his royal friend he lacked that confidence in himself, which was so essential a requirement for the ruler whose throne swayed on the storm-tossed billows of the Roman See. Bruno was of a rather retrospective turn of mind, and it was doubtful, whether he would be able to carry out the sweeping reforms planned by Theophano's idealistic son, and regarded with secret abhorrence by the Italian cardinals. Only with the aid of the venerable Gerbert had Gregory consented to enter upon the grave duties awaiting him at the head of the Christian world at a time when that world seemed to totter in its very foundations. And he had paid the penalty, cut down in the prime of life.

In the Vatican chapel on a bier, round which were burning six wax candles in silver-sticks, lay the fast decaying body of Gregory V. Terrible rumours concerning the Pontiff's death were abroad in the city. The doors of the Pope's private apartments had been found locked from within. The terrified attendants had not ventured to return to the Vatican until the gray morning light of the succeeding day broke behind the crests of the Apennines. They had broken down the door, rumour had it, but to recoil from the terrible sight which met their eyes. On his bed lay the dead Pontiff. The head and right arm almost touched the floor, as if in the death-struggle he had lost his balance. Traces of burnt parchment on the floor and an empty phial on the table beside him intensified, rather than cleared up the mystery. And as they approached, terror-stricken, and endeavoured to lift the body, the right arm almost severed itself from the trunk at their touch, and the body was fast turning black. The handsome features of the youth were gray and drawn, his hair clammy and dishevelled and the open eyes stared frightfully into space as if vainly searching for the murderer.

Whatever Gerbert's suspicions were when, too late, he arrived in the death chamber, no hint escaped his lips. Under his personal care the body of the hapless youth was prepared for interment, then he hurriedly convoked the Conclave and ordered the gates of Rome closed against any one attempting to leave the city.

The Vatican chapel was hung with funereal tapestry. Everywhere were seen garlands of flowers entwined with branches of cypress. In the middle of the chapel stood the bier, covered with black velvet. A choir of monks, robed in vestments of black damask, was chanting the last Requiem. The Cardinal of Sienna was conducting the last rites. As the echoes of the chant died away under the vaulted arches, a monk approached the bier, and sprinkled the corpse with holy water. The Cardinal pronounced the benediction; the monk bent slightly over the body when a drop from the forehead of the dead Pontiff rebounded to his face. He shuddered and hastily retreated behind the monks, who formed into the recessional. Only two remained in the chapel. Contrary to all custom they extinguished the candles which had burnt down half-way. The smaller ones they left to flicker out, until they should pitifully flare up once, more, then to go out in the great darkness like the soul of man, when his hour has come.

The last and only one to remain within the chapel to hold the death-watch with the Pontiff, was Eckhardt, the Margrave. Wrapt in his dark fancies he sat beside the bier. After his precipitate flight all memory of what succeeded had vanished. Exhausted and tottering he had found himself in the palace on the Caelian Mount, where he shut himself up till the terrible tidings of the Pontiff's death penetrated to the solitude of his abode. Now it seemed to him that the moment he would set foot in the streets of Rome, some dark and fearful revelation awaited him. Since that night, when the strange apparition had drawn him from the altars of Christ, had caused him to renounce the vows his lips were about to pronounce, a terrible fear and suspicion had gripped his soul. The presentiment of some awful mystery haunted him night and day, as he brooded over the terrible fascination of those eyes, which had laid their spell upon him, the amazing resemblance of the apparition to the wife of his soul, long dead in her grave. And the more he pondered the heavier grew his heart within him, and he groped in vain for a ray of light on his dark and lonely path,—vainly for a guiding hand, to conduct him from the labyrinth of doubt and fear into the realms of oblivion and peace. The Margrave's senses reeled from the heavy fumes of flowers and incense, which filled the Basilica. The light from a cresset-lantern on the wall, contending singly with the pale mournful rays of the moon, which cast a dim light through the long casement, over pillars and aisles, fell athwart his pallid face. The terrible incidents of the past night, which had thrown him back into the throes of the world, and had snuffed out the Pontiff's life, weighed heavily upon him, and for the nonce, the commander abandoned every attempt to clear the terrible mystery which enshrouded him. He almost despaired of combating the spectre single-handed, and now the one man, who might by counsel and precept have guided his steps, had been struck down by the assassin's hand.

The sanctity of the place, the solemnity of the hour, and the deep silence around were well calculated to deepen the melancholy mood of the solitary watcher. Weird were the fancies that swept over his mind, memories of a long forgotten past, and dim, indistinct plans for the future, till at length, wearied with his own reflections over that saddest of all earthly enigmas, what might have been, he seated himself on a low bench beside the bier. The moonbeams grew fainter and more faint, as the time wore on, and the sharp distinction between light and shadow faded fast from the marble floor.

Thicker and thicker drooped the shadows round the bier of the dead Pontiff. The silence seemed to deepen. The moon was gone. Save for the struggling rays of the cresset-lantern above him, the blackness of night closed round the solemn and ghostly scene.

The scent of flowers and the fumes of incense weighed heavily on Eckhardt's senses. Vainly did he combat the drowsiness; the silence, the dim light and the heavy fumes at last laid their benumbing spell upon him and lulled him to sleep. His head fell back and his eyes closed.

But his sleep was far from calm. Weird dreams beset him. Again he lived over the terrible ordeal of the preceding night. Again he saw himself surrounded, hemmed in by a vast concourse. Again he saw the phantom at the shrine, the phantom with Ginevra's face,—Ginevra's eyes; again he heard her strange luring words. The wine spilled from the sacred chalice looked like blood on the marble stairs of the altar. He heard his own voice, strange, unearthly; gripped by a choking sensation he rushed from the crowded Basilica, the air of which seemed to stifle him,—rushed in pursuit of the phantom with Ginevra's face,—Ginevra's eyes. At the threshold of the church a hand seized his own,—a woman's hand. How long, since he had felt a woman's hand in his own! It was cold as the skin of a serpent, yet it burnt like fire. And the hand drew him onward, ever onward. There was no resisting the gaze of those eyes which burnt into his own.

A deep azure overspread the sky. The trees were clothed in the raiment of spring. Blindly he staggered onward. Blindly he followed his strange guide through groves, fragrant with the perfumes of flowers,—the air seemed as a bower of love. The hand drew him onward with its chill, yet burning touch. The way seemed endless. Faster and faster grew their speed. At last they seemed to devour the way. The earth flitted beneath them as a gray shadow. The black trees fled in the darkness like an army in rout. They delved into glens, gloomy and chill. The night-birds clamoured in the forest deeps; will-o'-the-wisps gleamed over stagnant pools and now and then the burning eyes of spectres pierced the gloom, who lined a dark avenue in their nebulous shrouds.

And the hand drew him onward—ever onward! Neither spoke. Neither questioned. At last he found himself in a churchyard. The scent of faded roses hovered on the air like the memory of a long-forgotten love. They passed tombstone after tombstone, gray, crumbling, with defaced inscriptions; the spectral light of the moon in its last quarter dimly illumined their path till at last they reached a stone half hidden behind tall weeds and covered with ivy, moss and lichen. The earth had been thrown up from the grave, which yawned to receive its inmate. Owls and bats flocked and flapped about them with strange cries; the foxes barked their answer far away and a thousand evil sounds rose from the stillness. As they paused before the yawning grave he gazed up into his companion's face. Pale as marble Ginevra stood by his side, the long white shroud flowing unbroken to her feet. Through the smile of her parted lips gleamed her white teeth, as she pointed downward, to the narrow berth, then her arms encircled his neck like rings of steel; her eyes seemed to pierce his own, he felt unable to breathe, he felt his strength giving way, together they were sinking into the night of the grave—

A shrill cry resounded through the silence of the Basilica. Awakened by the terrible oppression of his dream,—roused by the sound of his own voice, Eckhardt opened his eyes and gazed about, fearstruck and dismayed. After a moment or two he arose, to shake off the spell, which had laid its benumbing touch upon him, when he suddenly recoiled, then stood rooted to the spot with wild, dilated eyes. At the foot of the Pontiff's bier stood the tall form of a woman. The fitful rays of the cresset-lantern above him illumined her white, flowing garb. A white transparent veil drooped from her head to her feet; but the diaphanous texture revealed a face pale and beautiful, and eyes which held him enthralled with their slumbrous, mesmeric spell. Breathless with horror Eckhardt gazed upon the apparition; was it but the continuation of his dream or was he going mad?

As the phantom slowly began to recede into the shadows, Eckhardt with a supreme effort shook off the lethargy which benumbed his limbs. He dared remain no longer inert, he must penetrate the mystery, whatever the cost, whatever the risk. With imploring, outstretched arms he staggered after the apparition,—if apparition indeed it was,—straining his gaze towards her slowly receding form—and so absorbed was he in his pursuit, that he saw not the shadow which glided into the mortuary chapel. Suddenly some dark object hurled itself against him; quick as a flash, and ere he could draw a second breath, a dagger gleamed before Eckhardt's eyes; he felt the contact of steel with his iron breast-plate, he heard the weapon snap asunder and fall at his feet, but when he recovered from his surprise, the would-be assassin, without risking a second stroke, had fled and the apparition seemed to have melted into air. Eckhardt found himself alone with the dead body of the Pontiff.

With loud voice he called for the sentry, stationed without, and when that worthy at last made his appearance, his heavy, drooping eyelids and his drowsy gait did not argue in favour of too great a watchfulness. Making the sentry doff his heavy iron shoes, Eckhardt bade him secure a torch, then he made the round of the chapel, preceded by his stolid companion. The Margrave's anxiety found slight reflex in the coarse features of his subordinate, who understood just enough of what was wanted of him to comprehend the disappointment in his master's countenance. As every door was locked and bolted, the only supposition remaining was that the bravo had discovered some outlet from within. But Eckhardt's tests proved unavailing. The floor and the walls seemed of solid masonry which to penetrate seemed impossible. The broken blade offered no clue either to the author or perpetrator of this deed of darkness, and after commanding the sentry to keep his watch for the remainder of the night, inside, Eckhardt endeavoured once more to compose himself to rest, while the man-at-arms stretched his huge limbs before the pontifical bier.

The bells of St. Peter's chimed shrill and loud as a mighty multitude, greater even than that of the preceding night, swept within its portals toward the chapel of Boniface VIII. There, filling every inch of space, only the more fortunate of the crowd gained a glimpse of the coffin, which had been closed, for the corpse was decaying fast, the effect of the terrible and mysterious poison which had been mixed in the holy wine. At length, as the solemn chant of the choristers began to swell through the edifice, preluding the celebration of the Death Mass for the departed Pontiff, a silence as of the tomb pervaded the vast edifice.

Thus the day wore on,—thus the day departed.

The solemn chant had died away. The sun of another day had set.

The funeral cortege set in motion. Fifty torches surrounded the bier and so numerous were the lamps in the windows of the streets through which the funeral procession passed, so abundant the showers of roses which poured upon the bier, that the people declared it surpassed the procession Corpus Domini.

Interchanging solemn hymns, the cortege arrived at last before the church of San Pietro in Montorio, where the body was to be placed in the niche provisionally appointed, where it was to remain till the death of the succeeding pope should consign it to its final place of rest.

The ceremony ended, the people dispersed. Few loiterers remained on the pavement of the church. The sacristan announced that it was about to be closed, and waiting until, as he thought, all had departed, he turned the ponderous doors on their hinges and shut them with a crash. The report, reverberating from arch to arch, shook the ancient sepulchre through its every angle. The lamps, which at wide intervals burned feebly before the shrines of the saints, lent additional solemnity and awe to the obscurity of the place. One torch was left to light a narrow circle round the entrance to the crypt.

Silence had succeeded when out of the shadow of the tomb there passed two figures, who upon entering the narrow circle of light emanating from the dim, flickering taper, faced each other in mute amazement and surprise.

"What are you doing here?" spoke the one, in the garb of a monk, as they stood revealed to each other in the half gloom.

With a gesture of horror and dismay the other, a woman, wrapt in a dark mantle, which covered her tall and stately form from head to foot, turned away from him.

"I give you back the question," she replied, dread and fear in her tones.

"My presence here concerns the dead," said the monk.

"They say, the hand of the dead Pontiff has touched his murderer."

The monk paled. For a moment he almost lost his self-control.

"He had to die some way," he replied with a shrug.

"Monster!" she exclaimed, recoiling from him, as if she had seen a snake in her path.

"He travelled in godly company," said the monk Cyprianus with a dark laugh. "An entire Conclave will welcome him at the gates of Paradise. Why are you here?" the monk concluded, a shade of suspicion lingering in his tones.

"Am I accountable to you?" flashed Theodora.

"Being what you are through my intercession,—perhaps," replied the monk.

She measured him with a look of unutterable contempt.

"Because the prying eyes of a perjured wretch, who screened his vileness behind the cassock of the monk, dared to offend the majesty of Death and to disturb the repose of the departed, you come to me like some importunate slave dissatisfied with his hire? You dare to constitute yourself my guardian, to call Theodora a thing of your creation? Take care! You speak to a descendant of Marozia. I have had enough of whimpering monks. For the service demanded of you in a certain hour you have been paid. So clear the way, and trouble me no more!"

The monk did not stir.

"The fair Theodora has not inherited Ginevra's memory," he said with a sneer. "The gold was to purchase the repose of Ginevra's soul."

Theodora shuddered, as if oppressed with the memories of the past.

"Candles and masses," she said, as one soliloquizing. "How signally they failed!"

The monk shrugged his shoulders.

"If a thousand Aves, and tapers six foot long fail in their purpose,—what undiscovered penance could perform the miracle?"

There was something in the gleam of the monk's eye which brought Theodora to herself.

"What do you want of me?" she questioned curtly.

"The fulfilment of your pledge."

"You have been paid."

The monk waved his hands.

"'Tis not for gold, I have ventured this—"

And he pointed to the crypts below.

She recoiled from him, regarding him with a fixed stare.

"What do you want of me?" she again asked with a look, in which hate and wonder struggled for the mastery.

"The new Conclave will be made up of your creatures. Their choice must fall—on me!"

"On the perjured assassin?" shrieked the woman. "Out of my way! I've done with you!"

The monk stirred not. From his drawn white face two eyes like glowing coals burnt into those of the woman.

"Remember your pledge!"

"Out of my way, assassin! Dare you so high? The chair of St. Peter shall never be defiled by such a one—as you!"

"And thus Theodora rewards the service rendered to Ginevra," the monk said, breathing hard, and making a step towards her. She watched him narrowly, her hand concealed under her cloak.

"Dare but to touch the hem of this robe with your blood-stained hands—"

Cyprianus retreated before the menace in her eyes.

"I thought I had lived too long for surprises," he said calmly. "Yet, considering that I bear here in this bosom a secret, which one, I know, would give an empire to obtain,—Cyprianus can be found tractable."

With a last glance at the woman's face, stony in its marble-cold disdain, the monk turned and left the church through the sacristy. For a moment Theodora remained as one spell-bound, then she drew her mantle more closely about her and left the sepulchre by an exit situated in an opposite direction. No sooner had her footsteps died to silence when two shadowy forms sped noiselessly through the incense-saturated dusk of S. Pietro in Montorio, pausing on the threshold of the door, through which the monk Cyprianus had gained the open.

"I need that man!" whispered the taller into the ear of his companion, pointing with shadowy finger to the swiftly vanishing form of the monk.

The other nodded with a horrid grin, which glowed upon his visage like phosphorus upon a skull.

With a quick nod of understanding, the Grand Chamberlain and John of the Catacombs quitted the steps of S. Pietro in Montorio.

Darkness fell.

Night enveloped the trembling world with her star embroidered robe of dark azure.

CHAPTER XVI

THE CONCLAVE

vast concourse surrounded the portals of the Vatican. It seemed as if the entire population of Rome, from the Porta del Popolo to the Coliseum, from the baths of Diocletian to Castel San Angelo, had assembled by appointment in the Piazza of St. Peter. For so dense was the multitude, that its pressure filled the adjacent thoroughfares, the crowds clinging round columns, winding along the broken outlines of the walls, and grouping themselves among the ruins of temples and fallen porticoes.

The eyes of all were fixed upon that wing of the pontifical palace where the Conclave, hurriedly convoked, was assembled, and as Gregory V had now been dead sixteen days, the cardinals were proceeding with the election of a new Pope. Never possibly, from the hour when the first successor of St. Peter mounted the throne of the Apostle, had there been exhibited so much unrest and disquietude as there was in this instance to be observed among the masses. The rumour that Gregory had died of poison had proved true, and the Romans had been seized with a strange fear, urging all ranks towards the Vatican or Monte Cavallo, according as the scarlet assembly held its sittings in one place or another. During the temporary interregnum, the Cardinal of Sienna, president of the Apostolic Chamber, had assumed the pontifical authority.

For three days the eyes of the Romans had been fixed upon a chimney in the Vatican, whence the first signal should issue, proclaiming the result of the pending election. Yet at the hour when the Ave Maria announced the close of day, a small column of smoke, ascending like a fleecy cloud of vapour to the sky, had been the only reward for their anxiety, and with cries mingled with shouts of menace, discordant murmurs of raillery and laughter the crowds had each day dispersed. For the smoke announced that the Romans were still without a Pontiff, that the ballot-list had been burnt, and that the Sacred College had not yet chosen a successor to Gregory.

The day had been spent in anxious expectation. Hour passed after hour, without a sign either to destroy or to excite the hope, when the first stroke of five was heard. Slowly the bells tolled the hour, every note falling on the hearts of the people, whose anxious gaze was fixed on the chimney of the Vatican. The last stroke sounded; its vibrations faintly fading on the silent air of dusk, when a thunderous clamour, echoing from thousands of throats, shook the Piazza of St. Peter, succeeded by a death-like silence of expectation as with a voice, loud and penetrating, Cardinal Colonna, who had stepped out upon the balcony, announced to the breathless thousands:

"I announce to you tidings of great joy: Gerbert of Aurillac, Archbishop of Rheims, Bishop of Ravenna and Vice-Chancellor of the Church, has been elected to the exalted office of Pontiff and has ascended the chair of St. Peter under the name of Sylvester II."

As the Cardinal finished his announcement a monk in the grey habit of the Penitent friars was seen to pale and to totter, as if he were about to fall. Declining the aid of those endeavouring to assist him he staggered through the crowds, covering his face with his arms and was soon lost to sight.

The thunderous applause at the welcome tidings was followed by sighs of relief, as the people retired to their houses and hovels. The place, where a few minutes before a nation seemed collected, was again deserted, save for a few groups, composed of such whom curiosity might detain or others who, residing in the immediate neighbourhood, were less eager to depart. Even these imperceptibly diminished, and when the hour of eight was repeated from cloisters and convents, the lights in the houses gradually disappeared, save in one window of the Vatican, whence a lamp still shed its fitful light through the nocturnal gloom.

Book the Second

The Sorceress

"As I came through the desert, thus it was

As I came through the desert: I was twain;

Two selves distinct, that cannot join again.

One stood apart and knew but could not stir,

And watched the other stark in swoon and her;

And she came on and never turned aside,

Between such sun and moon and roaring tide:

And as she came more near,

My soul grew mad with fear."

—James Thomson.

CHAPTER I

THE MEETING

ot many days after, in the still noontide of mellow autumn, a small band of horsemen drew towards Rome. They rode along the Via Appia, between the ancient tombs; all about them, undulant to the far horizon, stretched a brown wilderness dotted with ruins. Ruins of villas, of farms, of temples, with here and there a church or a monastery, that told of the newer time. Olives in scant patches, a lost vineyard, a speck of tilled soil, proved that men still laboured amid this vast and awful silence, but rarely did a human figure meet the eye. Marshy ground and stagnant pools lay on either hand, causing them to glance sadly at those great aqueducts, which had in bygone ages carried water from the hills into Rome.

They rode in silence, tired with their journey, occupied with heavy or anxious thoughts. Otto, King of the Germans, impatient to arrive, was generally a little ahead of the rest of the company. The pallor of his smooth and classic face was enhanced by the coarse military cloak, dark and travel-stained, which covered his imperial vestments. A lingering expression of sadness was revealed in his eyes, and his lips were tightly compressed in wordless grief, for the tidings of the untimely death of the Pontiff, the friend of his youth and his boyhood days, had reached him just after his departure from the shrines of St. Michael in Apulia. Dark hints had been contained in the message, which Sylvester II, Gregory's chosen successor and Otto's former teacher, had despatched to the ruler of the Roman world, urging his immediate return,—for the temper of the Romans brooked no trifling, their leaders being ever on the alert for mischief.

Earthworks and buildings of military purpose presently appeared, recalling the late blockade; churches and oratories told them they were passing the sacred ground of the Catacombs, then they trotted along a hollow way and saw before them the Appian gate. Only two soldiers were on guard; these, not recognizing the German king, took a careless view of the travellers, then let them pass without speaking.

At the base of the Aventine the cavalcade somewhat slackened its pace. Slowly they ascended the winding road, until they reached the old wall of Servius Tullius. Here Otto reined in his charger, pausing, for a moment, to observe the view. To the west and south-west stretched the brown expanse of the Campagna, merging into the distant gray of the Roman Maremma, while beyond that point a clear blue line marked the Ionian Sea. Beneath them the Tiber wound its coils round St. Bartholomew's Island, the yellow water of the river, stirred into faint ripples by the breeze, looking from the distance like hammered brass. Beyond the Tiber rose the Janiculan Mount, behind which the top of the Vatican hill was just visible. To southward the view was bounded by the Church of Santa Prisca above them and far off rose the snow-capped cone of Soracté. Northeast and east lay the Palatine and Esquiline with the Campaniles of Santa Maria Maggiore and San Pietro in Vincoli. Over the Caelian Mount they could see the heights of the Sabine hills, and running their eyes along the Appian way, they could almost descry the Alban lake. At a sign from their sovereign the cavalcade slowly set in motion. Passing the monastery of St. Jerome and its dependencies, the three churches of the Aventine, Santa Sabina, Santa Maria Aventina and St. Alexius, the imperial cavalcade at last drew rein before the gates of Otto's Golden Palace on the Aventine.

Again in his beloved Rome, Otto's first visit was to Bruno's grave. He had dismissed his attendants, wishing to be alone in his hour of grief. Long he knelt in tears and silent prayers before the spot, which seemed to contain half his young life, then he directed his steps towards the Basilica of St. Peter, there to conclude his devotions.

It was now the hour of Vespers.

The area of St. Peters was filled with a vast and silent crowd, flowing in and out of the Confessor's station, which was in the subterranean chapel, that contains the Apostle's tomb, the very lode-stone of devotion throughout the Christian word.

After having finished his devotions, Otto was seized with the desire to seek the confessor, in order to obtain relief from the strange oppression which hovered over him like a presentiment of evil. Taking his station in line with a number of penitents, in the dusky passage leading to the confessional, the scene within was now and then revealed to his gaze for the short space of a moment, when the bronze gates opened for the entrance or exit of some heavily burdened sinner. The tomb was stripped of all its costly ornaments, and lighted only by the torches of some monks, whose office it was to interpret the Penitentiarius, whenever occasion arose. These torches shed a mournful glow over the dusk, suiting the place of sepulchre of martyred saints. On the tomb itself stood an urn of black marble, beneath which was an alabaster tablet, on which was engraved the prophecy concerning the Millennium and the second coming of Christ, and the conditions of penance and prayer, which were to enable the faithful to share in and obtain its benefits. Only now and then, when the curtain waved aside, the person of the Grand Penitentiarius became visible, his hands rigidly clasped, and his usually pale and stern visage overspread with even a darker haze of its habitual gloom.

While Otto was anxiously waiting his turn to be admitted to the presence of the Confessor, the gates of the confessional suddenly swung open and a woman glided out. She was closely veiled and in his mental absorption Otto might scarcely have noticed her at all, but for the singular intensity of the gaze, with which the monk followed her retreating form.

As she passed the German King in the narrow passage, her veil became entangled and she paused to adjust it. As she did so, her features were for the brief space of a moment revealed to Otto, and with such an air of bewilderment did he stare at her, that she almost unconsciously raised her eyes to his. For a moment both faced each other, motionless, eye in eye—then the woman quickened her steps and hastened out. After she had disappeared, Otto touched his forehead like one waking from a trance. Never, even in this city of beautiful women, had he seen the like of her, never had his eyes met such perfection, such exquisite beauty and loveliness. She combined the stately majesty of a Juno with the seductive charms of Aphrodite. In dark ringlets the silken hair caressed the oval of her exquisite face, a face of the soft tint of Parian marble, and the dark lustrous eyes gave life to the classic features of this Goddess of Mediæval Rome. Before she vanished from sight, the woman, seemingly obeying an impulse not her own, turned her head in the direction of Otto. This was due perhaps to the strange discrepancy between his face and his attire, or to the presence of one so young and of appearance so distinguished among the throngs which habitually crowded the confessional.

How long he stood thus entranced, Otto knew not, nor did he heed the curious gaze of those who passed him on entering and leaving the confessional. At last he roused himself, and, oblivious of his station and rank, flew down the dark, vaulted passage at such a speed as almost to knock down those who encountered him in his headlong pursuit of the fair confessionist. It was more than a matter of idle curiosity to him to discover, if possible, her station and name, and after having attracted to himself much unwelcome attention by his rash and precipitate act, he gradually fell into a slower pace. He reached the end of the dark passage in time to see what he believed to be her retreating form vanish down a corridor and disappear in one of the numerous side-chapels. Concluding that she had entered to perform some special devotion, he resolved to await her return.

Considerable time elapsed. At last, growing impatient, Otto entered the chapel. He found it draped throughout with black, an altar in the center, dimly illumined. Some monks were chanting a Requiem, and before the altar there knelt a veiled woman, apparently under the spell of some deep emotion, for Otto heard her sob when she attempted to articulate the responses to the solemn and pathetic litany, which the Catholic church consecrates to her dead.

But the German King's observation suffered an immediate check.

A verger came forward on those soundless shoes, which all vergers seem to have, and little guessing the person or quality of the intruder informed him of the woman's desire, that none should be admitted during the celebration of the mass. Otto stared his informant in the face, as if he were at a loss to comprehend his meaning, and the latter repeated his request somewhat more slowly, under the impression that the stranger's seeming lack of understanding was due to his unfamiliarity with the speaker's barbarous jargon.

Otto slowly retreated and deferring his intended visit to the chapel of the Confessor to an hour more opportune, left the Basilica. As he recalled to himself, trace after trace, line upon line, that exquisite face, whose creamy pallor was enhanced by the dark silken wealth of her hair, and from whose perfect oval two eyes had looked into his own, which had caused his heart-beats to stop and his brain to whirl, he could hardly await the moment when he should learn her name, and perhaps be favoured with the assurance that her visit on that evening was not likely to have been her last to the Confessor's shrine.

Imbued with this hope, he slowly traversed the streets of Rome, experiencing a restful, even animating contentment in breathing once more the atmosphere of the thronging city, of being once more in a great center of humanity. At a familiar corner sat an old man with an iron tripod, over which, by a slow fire, he roasted his chestnuts, a sight well remembered, for often had he passed him. He threw him some coins and continued upon his way. Beyond, at his shop-door stood a baker, deep in altercation with his patrons. From an alley came a wine-vender with his heavy terra-cotta jars. Before an osteria a group of pifferari piped their pastoral strains. A few women of the sturdy, low-browed Contadini-type hastened, basket-laden, homeward. A patrol of men-at-arms marched down the Navona, while up a narrow tortuous lane flitted a company of white-robed monks, bearing to some death-bed the last consolation of the church.

Otto had partaken of no food since morning and nature began to assert her rights. Finding himself at the doorway of an inn for wayfarers, with a pretentious coat-of-arms over the entrance, he entered unceremoniously, and seated himself apart from the rather questionable company which patronized the Inn of the Mermaid. Here the landlord, a burly Calabrian, served his unknown guest with a most questionable beverage, faintly suggestive of the product of the vintage, and viands so strongly seasoned that they might have undertaken a pilgrimage on their own account.

For these commodities, making due allowance for his guest's abstracted state of mind, the uncertainty of the times and the crowded state of the city, the host of the Mermaid only demanded a sum equal to five times the customary charge, which Otto paid without remonstrance, whereupon the worthy host of the Mermaid called to witness all the saints of the calendar, that he deserved to spend the remainder of his life in a pig-sty, for having been so moderate in his reckoning.

As one walking in a dream, Otto returned to his palace on the Aventine. Had he wavered in the morning, had the dictates of reason still ventured to assert themselves—the past hour had silenced them for ever. Before his gaze floated the image of her who had passed him in the Basilica. At the thought of her he could hear the beating of his own heart. Rome—the dominion of the earth—with that one to share it—delirium of ecstasy! Would it ever be realized! Then indeed the dream of an earthly paradise would be no mere fable!

CHAPTER II

THE QUEEN OF NIGHT

week had passed since Otto's arrival in Rome. Eckhardt, wrapped in his own dark fancies, had only appeared at the palace on the Aventine when compelled to do so in the course of his newly resumed duties. The terrible presentiment which had haunted him night and day since he left the gray, bleak winter skies of his native land, had become intensified during the past days. Day and night he brooded over the terrible fascination of those eyes which had laid their spell upon him, over the amazing resemblance of the apparition to the one long dead in her grave. And the more he pondered the heavier grew his heart within him, and vainly he groped for a ray of light upon his dark and lonely path, vainly for a guiding hand to conduct him from the labyrinth of doubt and fear.

It had been a warm and sultry day. Towards evening dark clouds had risen over the Tyrrhene Sea and spread in long heavy banks across the azure of the sky. Sudden squalls of rain swept down at short intervals, driving the people into shelter. All the life of the streets took refuge in arcades or within dimly lighted churches. Soon the slippery marble pavements were deserted, and the water from the guttered roofs dripped dolefully into overflowing cisterns. A strange atmosphere of discomfort and apprehension lay over the city.

The storm increased as evening fell. From the seclusion of the gloomy chamber he occupied in the old weather-beaten palace of the Pierleoni, Eckhardt looked out into the growing darkness. The clouds chased each other wildly and the driving rain obliterated every outline.

How long he had thus stood, he did not know. A rattle of hailstones against the window, a gust of wind, which suddenly blew into his face, and the lurid glare of lightning which flashed through the ever-deepening cloud-bank, roused Eckhardt from his reverie to a sense of reality. The lamp on the table shed a fitful glare over the surrounding objects. Now the deep boom of thunder reverberating through the hills caused him to start from his listless attitude. Just as he turned, the lamp gave a dismal crackle and went out, leaving him in Stygian gloom. With an exclamation less reverent than expressive, Eckhardt groped his way through the darkness, vainly endeavouring to find a flint-stone. A flash of lightning which came to his aid not only revealed to him the desired object, but likewise a tall, shadowy form standing on the threshold. From the dense obscurity which enshrouded him, Eckhardt could not, in the intermittent flashes of lightning, see the stranger's features, but a singular, and even to himself quite inexplicable perversity of humour, kept him silent and unwilling to declare his presence, although he instinctively felt that the strange visitor, whoever he was, had seen him. Meanwhile the latter advanced a pace or two, paused, peered through the gloom and spoke with a voice strangely blended with deference and irony:

"Is Eckhardt of Meissen present?"

Without once taking his eyes from the individual, whose dark form now stood clearly revealed in the lightning flashes, which followed each other at shorter intervals, the same strange obstinacy stiffened Eckhardt's tongue, and concealed in the gloom, he still held his peace. But the stranger drew nearer, till in height and breadth he seemed suddenly to overshadow the Margrave, and once again the voice spoke:

"Is Eckhardt of Meissen present?"

"I am here!" the latter replied curtly, rising out of the darkness, and striking the flint-stones, he succeeded, after some vain efforts, in relighting the lamp. As he did so, a tremendous peal of thunder shook the house and the stranger precipitately retreated into the shadow of the doorway.

"You are the bearer of a message?" Eckhardt turned towards him, with unsteady voice. The stranger made no move to deliver what the other seemed to expect.

"Everything in death has its counterpart in life," he replied with a calm, passionless voice which, by its very absence of inflection, thrilled Eckhardt strangely. "If you have the courage—follow me!"

Without a word the Margrave placed upon his head a skullcap of linked mail, and after having adjusted his armour, turned to the mysterious messenger.

"Who bade you speak those words?"

"One you have seen before."

"Where?"

"Your memory will tell you."

"Her name?"

"You will hear it from her own lips."

"Where will you lead me?"

"Follow me and you will see."

"Why do you conceal your face?"

"To hide the blush for the thing called man."

The stranger's enigmatic reply added to Eckhardt's conviction that this night of all was destined to clear the mystery which enshrouded his life.

A mighty struggle, such as he had never before known, seemed to rend his soul, as with throbbing heart he followed his strange guide on his mysterious errand. Thus they sped through the storm-swept city without meeting one single human being. At the top of the Esquiline they came to a momentary standstill, for the storm raged with a force that nothing could resist. Leaning for a moment against a ruined portico, Eckhardt gazed westward over the night-wrapt city. In the driving rain he could scarcely distinguish the huge structures of the Flavian Amphitheatre and the palaces on the Capitoline hill. The Janiculan Mount stood out like a darker storm-cloud against the lowering sky, and the air was filled with a dull moan and murmur like the breathing of a sleeping giant. On the southern slope of the hill the wind attacked them with renewed fury, and the blasts howled up the Clivus Martis and the Appian Way. The region seemed completely deserted. Only a solitary travelling chariot rolled now and then, clattering, over the stones.

The road gradually turned off to the right. The dark mass to their left was the tomb of the Scipios and there in front, hardly visible in the darkness of night, rose the arch of Drusus, through which their way led them. Eckhardt took care to note every landmark which he passed, to find the way, should occasion arise, without his guide. The latter, constantly preceding him, took no note of the Margrave's scrutiny, but continued unequivocally upon his way, leaving it to Eckhardt to follow him, or not.

A blinding flash of lightning illumined the landscape far away to the aqueducts and the Alban hills, followed by a deafening peal of thunder. The uproar of the elements for a time shook Eckhardt's resolution.

Just then he heard the clanging of a gate.

An intoxicating perfume of roses and oleander wooed his bewildered senses as his guide conducted him through a labyrinthine maze of winding paths. Only an occasional gleam of lightning revealed to the Margrave that they traversed a garden of considerable extent. Now the shadowy outlines of a vast structure, illumined in some parts, appeared beyond the dark cypress avenue down which they strode at a rapid pace.

Suddenly Eckhardt paused, addressing his guide: "Where am I, and why am I here?"

The stranger turned, regarding him intently. Then he replied:

"I have nothing to add to my errand. If you fear to follow me, there is yet time to retreat."

Had he played upon a point less sensitive, Eckhardt might have turned his back even now upon the groves, whose whispering gloom was to him more terrible than the din of battle, and whose mysterious perfumes exercised an almost bewildering effect upon his overwrought senses.

A moment's deliberation only and Eckhardt replied:

"Lead on! I follow!"

He was now resolved to penetrate at every hazard the mystery which mocked his life, his waking hours and his dreams.

On they walked.

Here and there, from branch-shadowed thickets gleamed the stone-face of a sphinx or the white column of an obelisk, illumined by the lightnings that shot through the limitless depth of the midnight sky. The storm rustled among the arched branches, driving the dead and dying leaves in a mad whirl through the wooded labyrinth.

At last, Eckhardt's strange guide stopped before a cypress hedge of great height, which loomed black in the night, and penetrating through an opening scarce wide enough for one man, beckoned to Eckhardt to follow him. As the latter did so he stared in breathless bewilderment upon the scene which unfolded itself to his gaze.

The cypress hedge formed the entrance to a grotto, the interior of which was faintly lighted by a crystal lamp of tenderest rose lustre.

For a moment Eckhardt paused where he stood, then he touched his head with both hands, as if wondering if he were dreaming or awake. If it was not the work of sorcery, if he was not the victim of some strange hallucination, if it was not indeed a miracle—what was it? He gazed round, awe-struck, bewildered. His guide had disappeared.

The denizen of the grotto, a woman reclining on a divan, like a goddess receiving the homage of her worshippers, was the image of the one who had gone from him for ever, and the longer his gaze was riveted on this enchanting counterfeit of Ginevra, the more his blood began to seethe and his senses to reel.

Slowly he moved toward the enchantress, who from her half-reclining position fixed her eyes in a long and questioning gaze upon the new-comer, a gaze which thrilled him through and through. He dared not look into those eyes, which he felt burning into his. His head was beginning to spin and his heart to beat with a strange sensation of wonderment and fear. Never till this hour had he seen Ginevra's equal in beauty, and now that it broke on his vision, it was with the face, the form, the hair, the eyes, the hands, of the woman so passionately loved. Only the face was more pale—even with the pallor of death, and there was something in the depths of those eyes which he had never seen in Ginevra's. But the light, the perfume, the place and the seductive beauty of the woman before him, garbed as she was in a filmy, transparent robe of silvery tissue, which clung like a pale mist about the voluptuous curves of her body, flowing round her like the glistening waves of a cascade, began to play havoc with his senses.

"Welcome, stranger, in the Groves of Enchantment," she spoke, waving her beautiful snowy arms toward her visitor. "I rejoice to see that your courage deserves the welcome."

There was an undercurrent of laughter in her musical tones, as she pointed to a seat by her side. Unable to answer, unable to resist, Eckhardt moved a few paces nearer. His brain whirled. For a moment Ginevra's image seemed forgotten in the contemplation of the rival of her dead beauty. A wild, desperate longing seized him. On a sudden impulse he turned away, in a dizzy effort to escape from the mesmeric gleam of those sombre, haunting eyes, which pierced the very depths of his soul. Fascinated, at the same time repelled, his very soul yearned for her whose embrace he knew was destruction and he was filled with a strange sudden fear. There was something terrible in the steadfast contemplation which the woman bestowed upon him,—something that seemed to lie outside the pale of human passions, and the pallor of her exquisite face seemed to increase in proportion as the devouring fire of her eyes burnt more intensely.

"Are you afraid of me?" she laughed, raising her arms and holding them out toward him.

Still he hesitated. His breast heaved madly as his eyes met those, which swam in a soft languor, strangely intoxicating. Her lips parted in a faint sigh.

"Eckhardt," she said tremulously, "Eckhardt."

Then she paused as if to watch the effect of her words upon him.

Mute, oppressed by indistinct hovering memories, Eckhardt fed his gaze on her seductive fairness, but a terrible pain and anguish gnawed at his heart. Not only the face, even the voice was that of Ginevra.

"Everything in death has its counterpart in life:"—

That had been the pass-word to her presence.

One devouring look—and forgetting all fear and warning and all presence of mind he rushed towards that flashing danger-signal of beauty, that seemed to burn the very air encompassing it, that living image of his dead wife, and with wild eyes, outstretched arms and breathless utterance, he cried: "Ginevra!"

She whom he thus called turned toward him, as he came with the air of a madman upon her, and her marvellous loveliness, as she raised her dark eyes questioningly to his, checked his impetuous haste, held him tongue-tied, bewildered and unmanned.

And truly, nothing more beautiful in the shape of woman could be imagined than she. Her fairness was of that rare and subtle type which has in all ages overwhelmed reason, blinded judgment and played havoc with the passions of men.

Well did she know her own surpassing charm and thoroughly did she estimate the value of her fatal power to lure and to madden and to torture all whom she chose to make the victim of her almost resistless attraction. Her hair, black as night, was arranged loosely under a jewelled coif. Her eyes, large and brilliant, shone from under brows delicately arched. Her satin skin was of the creamy, colourless, Southern type, in startling contrast to the brilliant scarlet of the small bewitching mouth.

Beautiful and delicate as the ensemble was, there was in that enchanting face a lingering expression, which a woman would have hated and a man would have feared.

"Ginevra!" Eckhardt cried, then he checked himself, for, her large eyes, suddenly cold as the inner silence of the sea, surveyed him freezingly, as though he were some insolently obtrusive stranger. But her face was pale as that of a corpse.

"Ginevra!" he faltered for the third time, his senses reeling and he no longer master of himself. "Surely you know me—Eckhardt,—him whose name you have just called! Speak to me, Ginevra—speak! By all the love I have borne for you—speak, Ginevra,—speak!"

A shadow flitted through the background and paused behind Theodora's couch. Neither had seen it, though Theodora shuddered as if she had felt the strange presence of something uncalled, unbidden.

A strange light of mockery, or of annoyance, gleamed in the woman's eyes. Her crimson lips parted, showing two rows of even, small white teeth, then a gleam of amusement shot athwart her face, raising the delicately pencilled corners of the eye-brows, as she broke into a soft peal of careless mocking laughter.

"I am not Ginevra," she said. "Who is Ginevra? I am Theodora—the Queen of Love."

Again, as she saw his puzzled look, she gave way to her silvery, mocking mirth, while her eyes flung him a glittering challenge to approach. Eckhardt had recovered partial control over his feelings and met her taunting gaze steadfastly and with something of sadness. His face had grown very pale and all the warmth and rapture had died out of his voice, when he spoke again.

"I am Eckhardt," he said quietly, with the calm of a madman who argues for a fixed idea,—"and you are Ginevra—or her ghost—I know not which. Why did you return to the world from your cold and narrow bed in the earth and shun the man who worships you as one worships an idol? Is it for some transgression in the flesh that your soul cannot find rest?"

An ominous shuffling behind her caused Theodora to start. She turned her head as if by chance and when again she faced Eckhardt, she was as pale as death. Noting her momentary embarrassment, Eckhardt made a resolute step toward her, catching her hands in his own. He was dazed.

"Is this your welcome back in the world, Ginevra?" he pleaded with a passionate whisper. "Have you no thought what this long misery apart from you has meant? Remember the old days,—the old love,—have pity—speak to me as of old."

His voice in its very whisper thrilled with the strange music that love alone can give. His eyes burnt and his lips quivered. Suddenly he seemed to wake to a realization of the scene. He had been mocked by a fatal resemblance to his dead wife. His heart was heavy with the certainty, but the spell remained.

Without warning he threw himself on his knees, holding her unresisting hands in his.

"Demon or Goddess," he faltered, and his voice, even to his own ears, had a strange sound. "What would you have with me? Speak, for what purpose did you summon me? Who are you? What do you want with me?"

Her low laugh stirred the silence into a faint tuneful echo.

"Foolish dreamer," she murmured half tenderly, half mockingly. "Is it not enough for you to know that you have been found worthy to join the few chosen ones to whom this earthly paradise is not a book with seven seals? Like your sad-eyed, melancholy countrymen, you would analyze the essence of love and try to dissolve it into its own heterogeneous particles. If you were given the choice of the fairest woman you would descend into the mouldering crypts of the past, to unearth the first and last Helen of Troy. Ah! Is it not so? You Northmen prefer a theoretical attachment to the body of living, breathing, loving woman?"

He looked at her surprised, perplexed, and paused an instant before he made reply. Was she mocking him? Did she speak truth?

"Surely so peerless an enchantress, with admirers so numerous, cannot find it worth her while to add a new worshipper to the idolatrous throng?" he answered.

"Ah! Little you know," she murmured indolently, with a touch of cold disdain in her accents. "My worshippers are my puppets, my slaves! There is not a man amongst them," she added, raising her voice, "not a man! They kiss the hand that spurns their touch! As for you," she added, leaning forward, so that the dark shower of her hair brushed his cheek and her drowsy eyes sank into his own, "As for you—you are from the North.—I love a nature of strongly repressed and concentrated passion, of a proud and chilly temper. Like our volcanoes they wear crowns of ice, but fires unquenchable smother in their depths. And—might not at a touch from the destined hand the flame in your heart leap forth uncontrolled?"

Eckhardt met the enchantress' look with one of mingled dread and intoxication. She smiled, and raising a goblet of wine to her lips, kissed the brim and gave it to him with an indescribably graceful swaying gesture of her whole form, which resembled a tall white lily bending to the breeze. He seized the cup eagerly and drank thirstily from it. Again her magic voice, more melodious than the sounds of Æolian harps thrilled his ears and set his pulses to beating madly.

"But you have not yet told me," she whispered, while her head drooped lower and lower, till her dark fragrant tresses touched his brow, "you have not yet told me that you love me?"

Was it the purple wine that was so heavy on his senses? Heavier was the drowsy spell of the enchantress' eyes. Eckhardt started up. His heart ached with the memory of Ginevra, and a dull pang shot through his soul. But the spell that was upon him was too heavy to be broken by human effort. Nothing short of the thunder of Heaven could save him now.

Theodora's words chimed in his ear, while her hands clasped his own with their soft, electrifying touch. With a supreme effort he endeavoured to shake off the spell, into whose ravishment he was being slowly but surely drawn, his efforts at resistance growing more feeble and feeble every moment.

Again the voice of the Siren sent its musical cadence through his brain in the fateful question:

"Do you love me?"

Eckhardt attempted to draw back, but could not.

Entwining her body with his arms, he devoured her beauty with his eyes. From the crowning masses of her dusky hair, over the curve of her white shoulders and bosom, down to the blue-veined feet in the glistening sandals, his gaze wandered hungrily, searchingly, passionately. His heart beat with wild, mad desire, but, though his lips moved, no words were audible.

She too, was silent, apparently watching the effect of her spell upon him, sure of the ultimate fateful result. In reality she listened intently, as if expecting some unwelcome intrusion, and once her dark fear-struck eyes tried to penetrate the deep shadows of the grotto. She had heard something stir,—and a mad fear had seized her heart.

Eckhardt, unconscious of the woman's misgivings, gazed upon her as one dazed. He felt, if he could but speak the one word, he would be saved and yet—something warned him that, if that word escaped his lips, he would be lost. Half recumbent on her couch, Theodora watched her victim narrowly. A smile of delicate derision parted her lips, as she said:

"What ails you? Are you afraid of me? Can you not be happy, Eckhardt," she whispered into his brain, "happy as other men,—and loved?"

She bent toward him with arms outstretched. Closely she watched his every gesture, endeavouring, in her great fear, to read his thoughts.

"I cannot," he replied with a moan, "alas—I cannot!"

"And why not?" the enchantress whispered, bending closer toward him. She must make him her own, she must win the terrible wager; from out of the gloom she felt two eyes burning upon her with devilish glee. She preferred instant death to a life by the side of him she hated with all the strength of a woman's hate for the man who has lied to her, deceived her, and ruined her life. Noting the fateful effect of her blandishments upon him, she threw herself with a sudden movement against Eckhardt's breast, entwining him so tightly with her arms that she seemed to draw the very breath from him. Her splendid dark eyes, ablaze with passion, sank into his, her lips curved in a sweet, deadly smile. Roused to the very height of delirium, Eckhardt wound his arms round Theodora's body. A dizziness had seized him. For a moment Ginevra—past, present and future seemed forgotten. Closer and closer he felt himself drawn towards the fateful abyss—slowly the enchantress was drawing him onward,—until there would be no more resistance,—all flaming delirium, and eternal damnation.