“Forgive me, and let me have this one waltz—­please do!” She glanced at him a moment, and let him lead her out.

“No one has my step as you have it, Bertie,” she murmured, as they glided into the measure of the dance.

She thought his glance fell sadly on her as he smiled.

“No?—­but others will soon learn it.”

Yet he had never treaded more deftly the maze of the waltzers, never trodden more softly, more swiftly, or with more science, the polished floor.  The waltz was perfect; she did not know it was also a farewell.  The delicate perfume of her floating dress, the gleam of the scarlet flower-spray, the flash of the diamonds studding her domino, the fragrance of her lips as they breathed so near his own; they haunted him many a long year afterward.

His voice was very calm, his smile was very gentle, his step, as he swung easily through the intricacies of the circle, was none the less smooth and sure for the race that had so late strained his sinews to bursting; the woman he loved saw no change in him; but as the waltz drew to its end, she felt his heart beat louder and quicker on her own; she felt his hand hold her own more closely, she felt his head drooped over her till his lips almost touched her brow;—­it was his last embrace; no other could be given here, in the multitude of these courtly crowds.  Then, with a few low-murmured words that thrilled her in their utterance, and echoed in her memory for years to come, he resigned her to the Austrian Grand Duke who was her next claimant, and left her silently—­forever.

Less heroism has often proclaimed itself, with blatant trumpet to the world—­a martyrdom.

He looked back once as he passed from the ballroom—­back to the sea of colors, to the glitter of light, to the moving hues, amid which the sound of the laughing, intoxicating music seemed to float; to the glisten of the jewels and the gold and the silver—­to the scene, in a word, of the life that would be his no more.  He looked back in a long, lingering look, such as a man may give the gladness of the earth before the gates of a prison close on him; then he went out once more into the night, threw the domino and the mask back again into the carriage, and took his way, alone.

He passed along till he had gained the shadow of a by-street, by a sheer unconscious instinct; then he paused, and looked round him—­what could he do?  He wondered vaguely if he were not dreaming; the air seemed to reel about him, and the earth to rock; the very force of control he had sustained made the reaction stronger; he began to feel blind and stupefied.  How could he escape?  The railway station would be guarded by those on the watch for him; he had but a few pounds in his pocket, hastily slipped in as he had won them, “money-down,” at ecarte that day; all avenues of escape were closed to him, and he knew that his limbs would refuse to carry him with any kind of speed farther.  He had only the short, precious hours remaining of the night in which to make good his flight—­and flight he must take to save those for whom he had elected to sacrifice his life.  Yet how? and where?