"I promise, dearest!" Olga made answer very earnestly.

Something of relief softened the agony in the dark eyes. Very suddenly
Violet took her friend's face between her hands and passionately kissed
her on the lips.

"I love you, Allegro!" she said. "And I trust you--and you only--till
death."

It was then--at first but dimly--that Olga began to realize that the
burden laid upon her might be heavier than she could bear, and yet that
she alone must bear it even if it crushed her to the earth.

Passing out at length into the passage, she felt Violet's hand close
with a convulsive pressure upon her arm, and she knew that here was fear
such as she had never before encountered or imagined,--the deadly,
unfathomable fear of a mind that hovered on the brink of the abyss.

She caught the hand warmly, protectingly, into her own. And she swore
then and there a solemn, inward oath that, cost what it might, the trust
reposed in her should not be in vain. When her friend turned to her for
help in extremity, she should not find her lacking.

For of such stuff was Olga Ratcliffe fashioned, and her loyalty was that
same loyalty which moves men even unto the sacrifice of their lives.