heard of!”—­an elopement in the desert was “so exquisitely romantic!” Sir Chetwynd Lyle wrote a conventional and stilted account of it for his paper, and ponderously opined that the immorality of Frenchmen was absolutely beyond any decent journalist’s powers of description.  Lady Chetwynd Lyle, on the contrary, said that the “scandal” was not the fault of Gervase; it was all “that horrid woman,” who had thrown herself at his head.  Ross Courtney thought the whole thing was “queer;” and young Lord Fulkeward said there was something about it he didn’t quite understand,—­something “deep,” which his aristocratic quality of intelligence could not fathom.  And society talked and gossiped till Paris and London caught the rumor, and the name of the famous French artist, who had so strangely vanished from the scene of his triumphs with a beautiful woman whom no one had ever heard of before, was soon in everybody’s mouth.  No trace of him or of the Princess Ziska could be discovered; his portmanteau contained no letters or papers,—­nothing but a few clothes; his paint-box and easel were sent on to his deserted studio in Paris, and also a blank square of canvas, on which, as Dr. Dean and others knew, had once been the curiously-horrible portrait of the Princess.  But that appalling “first sketch” was wiped out and clean gone as though it had never been painted, and Dr. Dean called Denzil’s attention to the fact.  But Denzil thought nothing of it, as he imagined that Gervase himself had obliterated it before leaving Cairo.

A few of the curious among the gossips went to see the house the Princess had lately occupied, where she had “received” society and managed to shock it as well.  It was shut up, and looked as if it had not been inhabited for years.  And the gossips said it was “strange, very strange!” and confessed themselves utterly mystified.  But the fact remained that Gervase had disappeared and the Princess Ziska with him.  “However,” said Society, “they can’t possibly hide themselves for long.  Two such remarkable personalities are bound to appear again somewhere.  I daresay we shall come across them in Paris or on the Riviera.  The world is much too small for the holding of a secret.”

And presently, with the approach of spring, and the gradual break-up of the Cairo “season,” Denzil Murray and his sister sailed from Alexandria en route for Venice.  Dr. Dean accompanied them; so did the Fulkewards and Ross Courtney.  The Chetwynd-Lyles went by a different steamer, “old” Lady Fulkeward being quite too much for the patience of those sweet but still unengaged “girls” Muriel and Dolly.  One night when the great ship was speeding swiftly over a calm sea, and Denzil, lost in sorrowful meditation, was gazing out over the trackless ocean with pained and passionate eyes which could see nothing but the witching and exquisite beauty of the Princess Ziska, now possessed and enjoyed by Gervase, Dr. Dean touched him on the arm and said: