thing will never do. Let me reason out the matter calmly. I love
this woman,--love her to absolute madness. It is not the best kind
of love, maybe, but it is the only kind I am capable of, and such
as it is, she possesses it all. What then? Well! We go to-morrow
to the Pyramids, and we join her at the Mena House, I and the poor
boy Denzil. He will try his chance--I mine. If he wins, I shall
kill him as surely as I myself live,--yes, even though he is
Helen's brother. No man shall snatch Ziska from my arms and
continue to breathe. If I win, it is possible he may kill me, and
I shall respect him for trying to do it. But I shall satisfy my
love first; Ziska will be mine--mine in every sense of
possession,--before I die. Yes, that must be--that will have to
be. And afterwards,--why let Denzil do his worst; a man can but
die once."

He drew the cloth off his easel and stared at the strange picture
of the Princess, which seemed almost sentient in its half-
watchful, half-mocking expression.

"There is a dead face and a living one on this canvas," he said,
"and the dead face seems to enthral me as much as the living. Both
have the same cruel smile,--both the same compelling magnetism of
eye. Only it is a singular thing that I should know the dead face
even more intimately than the living--that the tortured look upon
it should be a kind of haunting memory--horrible--ghastly. ..."

He flung the cloth over the easel again impatiently, and tried to
laugh at his own morbid imagination.

"I know who is responsible for all this nonsense," he said. "It is