CHAPTER L.
WEEK went by and he did not return. To her it seemed as if the whole peopled world was dead.
A great despair fell on her, numbing, deadening, destroying all her life as paralysis falls upon the body and enchains it. No tears came to her eyes; no sound came to her lips. She was like a creature suddenly struck dumb.
She crouched in a corner of the inner chamber by Joconda's coffin, and stayed there as a frightened animal whose spirit is all gone out in terror, crouches in a corner, refusing in the stupidity of its fear even to take what would keep life in it.
A week went by, and she crept up into
