his manner now there was nothing melodramatic. He might have been doing the honours of Baròlin. When their meal was over she sat patient, supine, with no heart even to be angry. She knew that his eyes were on her all the time, but she would not look at him. At last she could bear the oppression of his presence in that confined place no longer, and got up and went outside. She longed to fling herself on the ground and sob, but pride kept her from this weakness. She would not let him think she was frightened. Presently he came out to her. "Would you like me to sing?" he said, gently.
She signified assent, and he began, his beautiful voice echoing strangely in this mountain heart. He sang on for an hour, all kinds of things, mostly sad, one or two spirited war songs, and among them "The Marseillaise."
Was ever stranger concert! At last Elsie got up, and said she would go to bed, and he went with her like an attentive host, lighted a fat lamp, and conducted her to the door of her chamber. Then he bowed low and left her.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE "CRATER" PRISON.
Three days went by of this curious life—days that seemed like an eternity. Elsie sometimes wondered whether she had ever passed any other existence than this one within the crater prison, with Dominic Trant for her sole companion. She wondered what was going on in the outer world, whether the Luya was all out in search of her, whether Frank Hallett thought she was dead, whether Ina was mourning her as lost. Alas! she did not know that Ina was a widow, mourning her husband—that Lord Horace was laid in his grave that very day.
Elsie had found a copy of Shakespeare. She guessed to whom the book belonged, and she stayed as much as she
