She was looking at him steadily, aware of his scrutiny.

“I will hear your message,” she said.  “Please sit down.”

O’Neill took a chair where he could continue to see her face.

“Senora,” he said, “I must tell you, first of all, that M. Regnault is ill beyond anything you can picture to yourself.  He sends this message, in truth, from his last bed, the bed he is to die on.  And that may be at any moment.  His is a disease that touches the heart; any emotion or quick movement—­anything at all, Senora, may cut off the very source of his life.  I ask you to have this in mind while you hear me.”

Her dark face was intent upon him while he spoke.

“What do you call this disease?” she asked.

“The doctors call it angina pectoris,” he answered.  She nodded slowly.  Her interest encouraged him to speak with more liberty.

“I could tell you a great deal about it,” he went on; “but it might be aside from the point.  Still—­” he pondered a moment, studying her.  “Still, imagine to yourself how such a malady sits upon a man like Regnault.  It is a fetter upon the most sluggish; for him, with all his vivacity of temperament, his ardor, his quickness, it is a rack upon which he is stretched.  You do not know the studio he has now, Senora!  It is a great room, with walls of black panels and a wide window in the slope of the roof.  Here and there are statues in marble, suits of armor—­the wreck and debris of dead ages.  And in one corner hangs a picture which the world values, Senora.  It is called ‘The Dancer.’”

A spark, a quick gleam in her eyes, rewarded him.  Her hands, crossed in her lap, trembled a little.

“It is all of a dark and somber splendor,” O’Neill continued.  “A great, splendid room, Senora, uncanny with echoes.  And in the middle of it, like a little white island, there is a narrow bed where he lies through the days and nights, camping on the borders of the grave.  There are some of us that share the watches by his bedside, to be ready with the drug that holds him to life; and I can tell you that it is sad there, in the hush and the shadows, with the noises of Paris rising about one from without.”

He ceased.  She was frowning as she listened to him, with her resemblance to the pictured face in Paris strangely accentuated by the emotions that warred within her.  For a minute neither of them spoke.

“I can see what you would have me see,” she said at last, raising her head.  “It belongs to that world in which I have now no part, Senior.  No part at all.  And it brings us no nearer to the message with which you are charged.”

“Your pardon,” said O’Neill.  “It is a part of my message.  And the rest is quickly told.  It is Regnault’s request, his prayer to you, that you will come to him, to your husband.”

“Ah!” The constraint upon her features broke like ice under a quick sun.  “I guessed it.  I—­to come to him!  You should be his friend indeed, to be the bearer of such a message to me.”