and with a quick rush, while my eyes were off her, she was at the door as soon as I. I put my hand to it to prevent her opening it, and to my chagrin she locked the door herself and put the key in her pocket.
"I have that to say to you which cannot wait even to suit the woman you love. If I must stay here, so shall you;" and she walked to the other side of the room and threw herself into a low chair, from which she looked at me defiantly.
This manœuvre perplexed me vastly. I was all un-*willing to remain, and yet I could not leave now without either a struggle to get possession of the key or by summoning assistance to have the door broken in. I cursed myself for my folly in having allowed the key to remain on the inside, although I could not have foreseen this dilemma.
What was her object? Had she any beyond the desire to keep me in the room while she loaded me with her invective and reproaches? What had been the thought which had struck her, and which had seemed to lead to her sudden assumption of calmness?
"Do you think it strange that I should wish for your company, Count?" she asked in a voice soft and gentle enough to have been the medium of a love message. "For all your ungentle treatment of me and for what I deem your faithlessness, I can find it in me to admire you. I have said some bitter things to you, I know. Forget them. Take them for the ravings only of a violent woman—or better, the revilings of a disappointed one. It is no light disappointment to lose such a man as you." Her tone was one of subtle witchery, tinctured with a sadness that might have sprung from a genuine regret. But I knew her; and all the
