second peremptory order was handed me. I am now on my way home to obey.'

"Then followed in slow, measured sentences the story of her life: married
at seventeen at her father's bidding to a man twice her age; surrounded by
a court the most dissolute in eastern Europe; forced into a social
environment that valued woman only as a chattel, and that ostracized or
defamed every wife who, reverencing her womanhood, protested against its
excesses. For five years past--ever since her marriage--her husband's
career had been one long, unending dissipation. At last, broken down by a
life he had not the moral courage to resist, he had succumbed and taken to
his bed; thence, wavering between life and death, like a burnt-out candle
flickering in its socket, he had been carried to Venice.

"'Do you wonder, now, that my faith is gone, my heart broken?'

"We were nearing Vienna; the stations were more frequent; our own carriage
began filling up. For an hour we rode side by side, silent, she gazing
fixedly from the window, I half stunned by this glimpse of a life the
pathos of which wrung my very heart. When we entered the station she
roused herself, and said to me half pleadingly:--

"'I cannot bear to think I may never see you again. To-night I must stay
in Vienna. Will you dine with me at my hotel? I go to the Metropole. And
you? Where did you intend to go?'

"'To the Metropole, also.'

"'Not when you left Venice?'

"'Yes; before I met you.'