There was nothing to prevent the possibility of a meeting between Beatrice and the Wanderer, if Beatrice remained alive.  They were in the same city together, and their paths might cross at any moment.  The Wanderer had forgotten, but it was not sure that the artificial forgetfulness would be proof against an actual sight of the woman once so dearly loved.  The same consideration was true of Beatrice.  She, too, might be made to forget, though it was always an experiment of uncertain issue and of more than uncertain result, even when successful, so far as duration was concerned.  Unorna reasoned coldly with herself, recalling all that Keyork Arabian had told her and all that she had read.  She tried to admit that Beatrice might be disposed of in some other way, but the difficulties seemed to be insurmountable.  To effect such a disappearance Unorna must find some safe place in which the wretched woman might drag out her existence undiscovered.  But Beatrice was not like the old beggar who in his hundredth year had leaned against Unorna’s door, unnoticed and uncared for, and had been taken in and had never been seen again.  The case was different.  The aged scholar, too, had been cared for as he could not have been cared for elsewhere, and, in the event of an inquiry being made, he could be produced at any moment, and would even afford a brilliant example of Unorna’s charitable doings.  But Beatrice was a stranger and a person of some importance in the world.  The Cardinal Archbishop himself had directed the nuns to receive her, and they were responsible for her safety.  To spirit her away in the night would be a dangerous thing.  Wherever she was to be taken, Unorna would have to lead her there alone.  Unorna would herself be missed.  Sister Paul already suspected that the name of Witch was more than a mere appellation.  There would be a search made, and suspicion might easily fall upon Unorna, who would have been obliged, of course, to conceal her enemy in her own house for lack of any other convenient place.

There was no escape from the deed.  Beatrice must die.  Unorna could produce death in a form which could leave no trace, and it would be attributed to a weakness of the heart.  Does any one account otherwise for those sudden deaths which are no longer unfrequent in the world?  A man, a woman, is to all appearances in perfect health.  He or she was last seen by a friend, who describes the conversation accurately, and expresses astonishment at the catastrophe which followed so closely upon the visit.  He, or she, is found alone by a servant, or a third person, in a profound lethargy from which neither restoratives nor violent shocks upon the nerves can produce any awakening.  In one hour, or a few hours, it is over.  There is an examination, and the authorities pronounce an ambiguous verdict—­death from a syncope of the heart.  Such things happen, they say, with a shake of the head.  And, indeed, they know that such things really do happen, and they suspect