certain window, with a gleam of satisfaction. Seeing they would
straightway withdraw there, I took advantage of the moment and made
haste to conceal myself behind a curtain as near that vicinity as
possible. In another instant I heard them approaching.

"You seem to be rather overwhelmed with attention to-night," were the
first words I caught, uttered in Mr. Blake's calmest and most
courteous tones.

"Do you think so?" was the slightly sarcastic reply. "I was just
deciding to the contrary when you came up."

There was a pause. Taking out my knife, I ripped open a seam in the
curtain hanging before me, and looked through. He was eyeing her
intently, a firm look upon his face that made its reserve more marked
than common. I saw him gaze at her handsome head piled with its
midnight tresses amid which the jewels, doubtless of her dead lord,
burned with a fierce and ominous glare, at her smooth olive brow, her
partly veiled eyes where the fire passionately blazed, at her scarlet
lips trembling with an emotion her rapidly flushing cheeks would not
allow her to conceal. I saw his glances fall and embrace her whole
elegant form with its casing of ruby velvet and ornamentation of lace
and diamonds, and an expectant thrill passed through me almost as if
I already beheld the mask of his reserve falling, and the true man
flash out in response to the wooing beauty of this full-blown rose,
evidently in waiting for him. But it died away and a deeper feeling
seized me as I saw his glances return unkindled to her countenance,
and heard him say in still more measured accents than before:

"Is it possible then that the Countess De Mirac can desire the