ill. Come what may, I must brace up my nerves, and try to compose

myself. It would be ruin to my hopes if I fell ill just now.”

She shuddered as she fancied she might be seized with fever, and lose her wits, perhaps, and betray in her wanderings the crime of which she had been guilty within these past twenty-four hours.

At length she was arrayed, all save the right-hand glove; but she could not stay to put that on now, lest she should be too late at the opera-house to enable the manager to make other arrangements for the night. The little white hands were loaded with blazing jewels, that sparkled and flashed in the light; but she no longer wore the fatal diamond ring that had scratched Gilardoni, the valet, on the wrist.

As she swept down the richly carpeted stairs, her movements signalized by the soft frou-frou of her Parisian garments, she meditated chiefly on the impending storm between herself and the director. She floated down to the door, followed by Finette, who was carrying the tiny bundle of floss silk, the denomination of which appeared to be Bébé.

The door was held open by a lackey, in a plain but exceedingly elegant livery. Madam hated all the male servants in her own and other people’s houses, for they often reminded her of the position to which had sunk the man whose legal wife she was.

But there was nothing in the sweetly modulated accents, and in the absent, preoccupied eyes of the beautiful mistress of the house to betray any feeling either way toward the domestic as she said:

“I shall be home about six. Dinner at seven.”

The servant bowed, though a lightninglike glance at Finette behind the signora’s back indicated surprise, for if madam dined at seven, she evidently did not mean to go to the opera, at all events as a performer.

Madam put out one tiny foot to reach her brougham, but drew back with a deep breath that narrowly escaped being a cry of alarm.

Standing just within the portico was a tall, gentlemanly-looking man, a stranger to her, hat in hand, waiting to address her.