affrightened before her, for I was in fear of her blazing eyes.
'Then for the first time she spoke. "Do not fear," she said, in a strange hoarse voice, "I am not going to shoot you like this, but to-night one of us can claim the man we love, and have no rival."
'"Susan, little Susan!" I cried, with all my love of her in my eyes, but she would not see.
"There is one too many," she smiled bitterly, "and I may be the one. That heaven will settle in a few minutes. Yet I know he would love me if you had not flung your false glitter about him. I know he still loves me if he were free of your blandishments, and to-morrow, if fate so wills it, I shall win him back; if not, why you shall be his, and I shall not care. I shall not know the torture of this desperate heart, or the agony of my blighted love. I shall know what it is to rest without dreaming, to sleep without awaking. And you can live in happiness with him whom you stole from your best friend. False and evil woman, one of us only shall leave this room alive."
'I looked upon her as she stood in her wild beauty, her dishevelled hair falling over her
