A touch roused me—­an imperative, burning touch.  An airy brightness, like a light cloud with sunshine falling through it, hovered above Zara’s bier!  I gazed breathlessly; I could not move my lips to utter a sound.  A face looked at me—­a face angelically beautiful!  It smiled.  I stretched out my hands; I struggled for speech, and managed to whisper: 

“Zara, Zara! you have come back!”

Her voice, so sweetly familiar, answered me:  “To life?  Ah, never, never again!  I am too happy to return.  But save him—­save my brother!  Go to him; he is in danger; to you is given the rescue.  Save him; and for me rejoice, and grieve no more!”

The face vanished, the brightness faded, and I sprang up from my knees in haste.  For one instant I looked at the beautiful dead body of the friend I loved, with its set mouth and placid features, and then I smiled.  This was not Zara—­she was alive and happy; this fair clay was but clay doomed to perish, but she was imperishable.

“Save him—­save my brother!” These words rang in my ears.  I hesitated no longer—­I determined to seek Heliobas at once.  Swiftly and noiselessly I slipped out of the chapel.  As the door swung behind me I heard a sound that first made me stop in sudden alarm, and then hurry on with increased eagerness.  There was no mistaking it—­it was the clash of steel!

CHAPTER XVI.

A struggle for the mastery.

I rushed to the study-door, tore aside the velvet hangings, and faced Heliobas and Prince Ivan Petroffsky.  They held drawn weapons, which they lowered at my sudden entrance, and paused irresolutely.

“What are you doing?” I cried, addressing myself to Heliobas.  “With the dead body of your sister in the house you can fight!  You, too!” and I looked reproachfully at Prince Ivan; “you also can desecrate the sanctity of death, and yet—­you loved her!”

The Prince spoke not, but clenched his sword-hilt with a fiercer grasp, and glared wildly on his opponent.  His eyes had a look of madness in them—­his dress was much disordered—­his hair wet with drops of rain—­his face ghastly white, and his whole demeanour was that of a man distraught with grief and passion.  But he uttered no word.  Heliobas spoke; he was coldly calm, and balanced his sword lightly on his open hand as if it were a toy.

“This gentleman,” he said, with deliberate emphasis, “happened, on his way thither, to meet Dr. Morini, who informed him of the fatal catastrophe which has caused my sister’s death.  Instead of respecting the sacredness of my solitude under the circumstances, he thrust himself rudely into my presence, and, before I could address him, struck me violently in the face, and accused me of being my sister’s murderer.  Such conduct can only meet with one reply.  I gave him his choice of weapons:  he chose swords.  Our combat has just begun—­we are anxious to resume it; therefore if you, mademoiselle, will have the goodness to retire—–­”