“Happy?  Do you wish me to be happy?”

“God knows!”

“And you?” curiously.

“I have no time to ask you to consider me,” with a clear pride.  “I do not wish to see you hurt.  You are courting death, Karl, death.”

“Who cares?”

“I care!” with a sob.

The bitterness in his face died for a space.  “Hildegarde, I’m not worth it.  Forget me as some bad dream; for that is all I am or ever shall be.  Marry Cathewe; I’m not blind.  He will make you happy.  I have made my bed, or rather certain statesmen have, and I must lie in it.  If I had known what I know now,” with regret, “this would not have been.  But I distrusted every one, myself, too.”

She understood.  “Karl, had you told me all in the first place, I should have given you that diagram without question, gladly.”

“Well, I am sorry.  I have been a beast.  Have we not always been such, from the first of us, down to me?  Forget me!”

And with that he left her standing by the side of her chair and walked swiftly toward the hotel.  When next she realized or sensed anything she was lying on her bed, her eyes dry and wide open.  And she did not go down to dinner, nor did she answer the various calls on her door.

Night rolled over the world, with a cool breeze driving under her million planets.  The lights in the hotel flickered out one by one, and in the third corridor, where the adventurers were housed, only a wick, floating in a tumbler of oil, burned dimly.

Fitzgerald had waited in the shadow for nearly an hour, and he was growing restless and tired.  All day long he had been obsessed with the conviction that if Breitmann ever made a start it would be some time that night.  Distinctly he heard the light rattle of a carriage.  It stopped outside the gardens.  He pressed closer against the wall.  The door to Breitmann’s room opened gently and the man himself stepped out cautiously.

“So,” began Fitzgerald lightly, “your majesty goes forth to-night?”

But he overreached himself.  Breitmann whirled, and all the hate in his breast went into his arm as he struck.  Fitzgerald threw up his guard, but not soon enough.  The blow hit him full on the side of the head and toppled him over; and as the back of his head bumped the floor, the world came to an end.  When he regained his senses his head was pillowed on a woman’s knees and the scared white face of a woman bent over his.

“What’s happened?” he whispered.  There were a thousand wicks where there had been one and these went round and round in a circle.  Presently the effect wore away, and he recognized Laura.  Then he remembered.  “By George!”

“What is it?” she cried, the bands of terror about her heart loosening.

“As a hero I’m a picture,” he answered.  “Why, I had an idea that Breitmann was off to-night to dig up the treasure himself.  Gone!  And only one blow struck, and I in front of it!”