She tore them free, only to plunge deeper at every step, while behind her, swift and remorseless, followed her fate.

Wildly she struggled, powerless but persistent, till at last her strength was gone. She sank in utter impotence.

And then he came to her, he lifted her, he held her in his arms, pressed sickening kisses upon her lips; and suddenly she knew that she had fled from a myth to hurl herself into the power of her enemy. She had eluded her fate but to find herself at the mercy of a devil.

Gasping and half-suffocated she awoke, starting upright in a cold sweat of fear. Her heart was pumping as if it would burst. Her starting eyes searched and searched for the face of her captor. Her ears were strained for the sound of his soft, hateful laugh.

Ah! He was at the door! She heard a hand feeling along the panels, heard the handle turn! As one paralyzed she sat and waited.

Softly the door opened.

"Allegro!" whispered a hushed voice.

Olga turned swiftly with outflung arms. "Oh, come in, dear! Come in!

I've had such a ghastly dream! You've come just in the nick of time."

Softly the door closed. Violet came to her, wonderful in the moonlight, a white mystery with shining eyes. She stood beside the bed, suffering herself to be clasped in her friend's arms.

"What have you been dreaming about?" she said.

"Oh, sheer nonsense of course," said Olga, hugging her in sheer relief.

"All about that hateful Hunt-Goring man. Get into bed beside me and help me to forget him!"

But Violet remained where she was.

"Allegro," she said, "I've had--a bad dream--too."

"Have you, dear? How horrid!" said the sympathetic Olga. "What can we both have had for supper, I wonder?"

Violet uttered a hard little laugh. "Oh, it wasn't that! I haven't been asleep at all. I generally do sleep after Hunt-Goring's cigarettes. But to-night I couldn't. They only seemed to make things worse." She sat down abruptly on the edge of the bed. "Don't cuddle me, Allegro! I'm so hot."

Olga leaned back on her pillows, with a curious sense of something gone wrong. "Shall I light a candle?" she said.

"No. It's light enough. I hate an artificial glare, Allegro!"

"Well, dear?" said Olga gently.

Violet was sitting with her back to the moonlight, her face in deep shadow. Her black hair was loosely tied back and hung below her waist.

Olga stretched out a hand and touched the silken ripples caressingly.

Violet threw back her head restlessly. "I'm going to give up Hunt-Goring," she said.

"My dear, I am glad!" said Olga fervently.

Violet laughed again. "I only encouraged him for the sake of his cigarettes. But I'm going to give up them too. The opium habit grows on one so."

"Opium!" echoed Olga sharply.

"Opium, dear child! It's a cunning mixture and most seductive. The astute Max little knew what he was inhaling this afternoon." Violet's words had a curious tremor in them as of semi-tragic mirth.

Olga listened in horrified silence. So this was the secret of Max's peculiar behaviour! If he did not know by this time, then she did not know Max Wyndham.

"Yes," Violet went on. "Hunt-Goring is counting on those cigarettes of his to get me under his influence. I know. But I'm tired to death of the man. I'm going to pa.s.s him on to you."

"I hate him!" said Olga quickly.

"Oh, yes, dear! But he has his points. You'll find he can be quite amusing. Anyhow, take him off my hands for a spell. It isn't fair to make me do all your entertaining."

"Why don't you snub him?" said Olga, with some impatience. "It certainly isn't my fault that he comes here."

"Allegro, don't be horrid! I didn't refuse to help you when you wanted help." There was actually a pleading note in Violet's voice.

Olga responded to it instantly, with that ready warmth of hers that was the secret of her charm. "My dear, you know I would do anything in my power for you. But I can't--possibly--be nice to Major Hunt-Goring. I do detest him so."

"You detest Max Wyndham," said Violet quickly. "But you manage to be nice to him."

The words rang almost like an accusation. For the moment Olga felt quite incapable of replying. She lay in silence.

"Allegro!" Again she heard that note of pleading, vibrant this time, eager, almost pa.s.sionate.

With an effort Olga brought herself to answer. "I've changed my mind about him. We are friends."

"Friends!" Violet sprang from the bed, and stood tense, quivering, with an arrow-like straightness that made her superb. Her eyes glittered as she faced the moonlight that poured through the unshaded window. "Does that mean you--care for him?" she demanded.

Olga hesitated. Violet in this mood was utterly unfamiliar to her, a strange and tragic personality before which she felt curiously small and ill at ease, even in some unaccountable fashion guilty.

"Dear, please don't ask me such startling questions!" she said. "I can't possibly answer you."

"Why not?" said Violet. Her hands were clenched. Her whole body seemed to be held in rigid control thereby.

"Because--" again Olga hesitated, considered, finally broke off lamely "I don't know."

"You do know!" There was actual ferocity in the open contradiction.

Violet was directly facing her now. Her eyes shone so fiercely, so unnaturally, bright that a queer little sensation of doubt p.r.i.c.ked Olga for the first time, setting every nerve and every muscle on the alert for she knew not what. "You do know, Allegro! And so do I!" The full voice took a deeper note, it throbbed the words. "Do you think I haven't watched you, seen what was going on? Do you think it has all been nothing to me--nothing to see you spoiling my chances day by day--nothing to feel you drawing him away from me--nothing to know--to know--" she suddenly flung her clenched hands wide open to the empty moonlight--"to know that you have set your heart on the only man I ever loved--you who wanted me to help you to get away from him--and have shouldered me aside?"

Her voice broke. She turned to the girl in the bed with eyes grown terrible in their wild anguish of pain. "Allegro!" she cried. "Allegro!

Give him up! Give him up--if not for my sake--for your own! You couldn't--be happy--with him!"

With the words she seemed to crumple as though all power had suddenly left her, and sank downwards upon the floor, huddling against the bed with agonized sobbing, her black head bowed almost to the floor.

Olga was beside her in an instant, stooping over her, wrapping warm arms about her. "My darling, don't, don't!" she pleaded. "You know I would never do anything to hurt you. I never dreamed of this indeed--indeed!"

Violet made a pa.s.sionate movement to thrust her away, but she would not suffer it. She held her close.

"Violet dearest, don't cry like this! There is no need for it. Really, you needn't be so distressed. There, darling, come into bed with me.

You'll be ill if you cry so. Violet! Violet!"

But Violet was utterly beyond control, and her paroxysm of weeping only grew more and more violent, till after some minutes Olga became seriously frightened. She stood up, and began to ask herself what she must do.