His eyes softened again, as the storm outside lulled for a moment.

“My darling, don’t be afraid!  I will save you from him.  I will keep you mine—­mine!”

The thunder crashed again, and again the fury leaped to his eyes.  He drew from his pocket a curious foreign dagger, engraved with quaint designs, and glittering with encrusted gold.  Opal recognized it at once.  She had toyed with it the day before, admiring the richness of its material and workmanship.

“She—­has been—­mine—­my wife,” he muttered to himself, wildly, disconnectedly, yet with startling distinctness.  “She shall never, never lie in his arms!”

He passed his hand across his eyes, as if to brush away a veil.

“Oh, the red! the red! the red!  It’s blood and fire and hell!  It glares in my eyes!  It screams in my ears!  Bidding me kill! kill!”

He clasped her to him fiercely.

“To see you, after all this—­to see you go from me—­and know you were going to him—­him—­while I went ...  Oh, beloved! beloved!  God never meant that!  Surely He never meant that when He created us the creatures that we are!”

She kissed his hot, quivering lips.  She had not loved him so much in all their one mad day as she loved him now.

“Paul,” she whispered, “beloved!—­what would you do?”

There was only a great wonder in her eyes, not the faintest sign of fear.  Even in his anguish the Boy noticed that.

“What would I do?  Listen, Opal, my darling.  Don’t you remember, you said it was not life but death—­and I said it was both!  And it is! it is!  I thought I was strong enough to brave hell!  Opal—­though you are betrothed to the Count de Roannes you are my wife!  And our wedding-journey shall be eternal—­through stars, Opal, and worlds—­far-off, glimmering worlds—­our freed spirits together, always together—­together!”

She watched him, fascinated, spell-bound.

“Dear heart, Nature will not repulse us,” Paul continued.  “She will gather us to her great, warm, peaceful heart, beloved!”

Opal held him close to her breast, almost maternally, with a great longing to soothe and calm his troubled spirit.

“Think,” he continued, “of what my poor, unhappy mother said was the cost of love—­’Sorrow and death!’ We have had the sorrow, God knows!  And now for death!  Kiss me, dearest, dearest!  Kiss me for time and for eternity, Opal, for in life and in death we can never part more!”

She kissed him—­obediently, solemnly—­and then, holding her to him, drinking in all the love that still shone for him in those eyes that had driven him to desperation, he suddenly plunged the little dagger to its hilt through her heart.

She did not cry out.  She did not even shudder.  But looking at him with “the light that never was on sea or land” in her still brilliant eyes, she murmured, “In—­life—­and—­in—­death ... beloved! beloved!”