Had it the power to chant to rest that sombre past which memory kept as a funeral theme for ever on its vibrating strings?  Was there at last a file for the serpent, that had so long made its lair in her distorted and envenomed nature?

At thirty-three time ceases to tread with feathery feet, and the years grow self-asserting, italicize themselves in passing; and across the dial of woman’s beauty the shadow of decadence falls aslant.  But although Mrs. Orme had offered sacrifice to that inexorable Terminus, who dwells at the last border line of youth, the ripeness and glow of her extraordinary loveliness showed as yet no hint of the coming eclipse.

Health lent to cheek and lip its richest, warmest tints, and though the silvery splendour of hope shone no longer in the eloquent brown eyes, the light of an almost accomplished triumph imparted a baleful brilliance, which even the long lashes could not veil.

Her pale lilac robe showed admirably the transparency of her complexion, and in her waving gilded hair she wore a cluster of delicate rose anemones.

Her gaze seemed to have crossed the blue pavement of sea, and rested on the purpling outlines of Ischia and Capri; but the dimpling smile that crossed her face sprang from no dreamy reverie of Parthenope legends, and her voice was low and deep like one rehearsing for some tragic outbreak.

“So Samson felt in Dagon’s temple, amid the jubilee of his tormentors, when silent and calm, girded only by the sense of his wrongs, he meekly bowed to rest himself; and all the while his arms groped stealthily around the pillars destined to avenge him.  Ah! how calm, how holy, all outside of my heart seems!  How in contrast with that charnel-house yonder vision of peaceful loveliness appears as incongruous as the nightingales which the soul of Sophocles heard singing in the grove of the Furies?  After to-day will the world ever look quite the same to me?  Thirty-three years have brought me swiftly to the last fatal page; and shall the hand falter that writes finis?”

A strangely solemn expression drifted over her countenance, but at that moment a tall form darkened the doorway, and she smiled.

“Come in, General Laurance.  Punctuality is essentially an American virtue, rarely displayed in this dolce far niente land; and you exemplify its nationality.  Five was the hour you named, and my little Swiss tell-tale is even now sounding the last stroke.”

She did not rise, seemed on the contrary, to sink farther back in her velvet-lined chair; and bending down General Laurance touched her hand.

“When a man’s happiness for all time is at stake does he loiter on his way to receive the verdict?  Surely you will——­”

He paused and glanced significantly at the figure whose white cap was bowed low, as its wearer slumbered over the interminable crochet.

“May not this interview at least be sacred from the presence of your keepers?”