Beryl shut her eyes and groaned; but the scene merely shifted to a dell under the shadow of Carrara hills, where olives set “Ricordo” among their silver leaves; and lemons painted “Ricordo” in their pale gold; and scarlet pomegranates and nodding violets, burning anemones and tender green of trailing maiden-hair ferns all blazoned “Ricordo.”

The fierce tide of wrath, that indignation and her keen sense of outraged innocence had poured like molten lead through her throbbing arteries, was oozing sluggishly, congealing under the awful spell of that one word “Ricordo.”  Hitherto, the shame of the suspicion, the degradation of the imprisonment had caught and empaled her thoughts; but by degrees, these became dwarfed by the growing shadow of a possibly ignominious death, which spread its sable pinions along the rosy dawn of her womanhood, and devoured the glorious sun of her high hopes.  The freezing gloom was creeping nearer, and to-day she could expect no succor, save by one avenue.

Islam believes that only the cimeter edge of Al Sirat divides Paradise from perdition.  Beryl realized that in her peril, she trod an equally narrow snare, over yawning ruin, holding by a single thread of hope that handkerchief.  Weak natures shiver and procrastinate, shunning confirmation of their dread; but to this woman had come a frantic longing to see, to grasp, to embrace the worst.  She was in a death grapple with appalling fate, and that handkerchief would decide the issue.

Physical exhaustion was following close upon the mental agony that had stretched her on the rack, for so many days and nights.  To sit still was impossible, yet in her wandering up and down the narrow room, she reeled, and sometimes staggered against the wall, dizzy from weakness, to which she would not succumb.

Human help was no more possible for her, than for Moses, when he climbed Nebo to die; and alone with her God, the brave soul wrestled.  Wearily she leaned against the window bars, twining her hot fingers around them, pressing her forehead to the cold barrier; and everywhere “Ricordo” stabbed her eyes like glowing steel.

The door opened, some words were uttered in an undertone, then the bolt clicked in its socket, and Mr. Dunbar approached the window.  Mechanically Beryl glanced over her shoulder, and a shiver crept across her.

“I believe you know me.  Dunbar is my name.”

He stood at her side, and they looked into each other’s eyes, and measured lances.  Could this worn, pallid woman, be the same person who in the fresh vigor of her youthful beauty, had suggested to him on the steps of “Elm Bluff,” an image of Hygeia?  Here insouciante girlhood was dead as Manetho’s dynasties, and years seemed to have passed over this auburn head since he saw it last.  Human faces are Nature’s highest type of etchings, and mental anguish bites deeper than Dutch mordant; heart-ache is the keen needle that traces finest lines.