“Let me help you to undress.  You know I shall be glad to have you here.”

Regina unbuttoned her shoes, and began to draw them off, while Olga mechanically took down and twisted her weighty hair.  Once she put her hand on her pocket, and her eyes glittered.

“I want a glass of wine, or anything that will quiet me.  Please go down to the dining-room, and get me something to put me to sleep.  My head feels as if it were on fire.”

The tone was so unusually coaxing, that Regina’s suspicions were aroused.

“I don’t know where to find the key of the wine closet.”

“Then wake Octave, and tell him to give you some wine He keeps port and madeira for soups and sauces.  You must I would do as much for you.  I will go to Octave.”

She attempted to rise, but Regina feigned acquiescence, and left the room, closing the door, but leaving a crevice.  Outside, she knelt down and peeped through the key-hole.

Alarmed by the unnatural expression of the fiery hazel eyes, a horrible dread overshadowed her, and she trembled from head to foot.

While she watched, Olga rose, turned her head and listened intently; then drew something from her pocket, and Regina saw that it was a glass vial.

“I win at last.  To-morrow, mamma and her stepson will not exult over this victory.  If I have an immortal soul may God—­my Maker and Judge—­have mercy upon me!”

She drew out the cork with her teeth, turned, and as she lifted the vial to her lips, Regina ran in and seized her arm.

“Olga, you are mad!  Would you murder yourself?”

They grappled; Olga was much taller and now desperately strong, but luckily Regina had her fingers also on the glass, and, dragging down the hand that clenched it, the vial was inverted, and a portion of the contents fell upon the carpet.

Feeling the liquid run through her fingers, Olga uttered la cry of baffled rage of despair, and struck the girl a heavy blow in the face that made her stagger; but almost frantic with terror Regina improved the opportunity afforded by the withdrawal of one of the large hands, to tighten her own grasp, and in the renewed struggle succeeded in wrenching away the vial.  The next instant, she hurled it against the marble mantlepiece, and saw it splintered into numberless fragments.

As the wretched woman watched the fluid oozing over the hearth, she cried out and covered her face with her hands.

“Dear Olga, you are delirious, and don’t know what you are doing.  Go to bed, and when you lie down, I will get the wine for you.  Please, dear Olga!  You wring my heart.”

“Oh, you call yourself my friend, and you have been most cruel of all!  You keep me from going to a rest that would have no dreams, and no waking, and no to-morrow.  Do you think I will live and let them taunt me with my folly, my failure?  Let that iron fiend show his white teeth, and triumph over me?  People will know I sold my clothes, and tried to run away, and was forsaken.  Oh! if you had only let me alone!  I should very soon lave been quiet; out of even Erle Palma’s way!  Now——­”