"Get out!" he thundered.

With that she was outside the door.

Lilly experienced merely a lazy sensation of being startled.

"Nevertheless, I'm curious to know what he means to do with me now," she thought.

But her interest in her own fate was not great.

He walked up and down with a heavy tread. The silver spurs on his heels jingled.

"We'll have some light," he said. "The subject we're now to discuss requires clearness."

He summoned the lackey who had smiled the furtive, cunning smile. The lackey lit the gas jets of the chandelier, and on leaving the room gave Lilly a glance of wildly eager curiosity, this time without a smile.

Lilly still sat on the couch on which she had come back to consciousness, twirling her old hat without a thought in her brain.

In the full light of the chandelier she saw the colonel in all his resplendence stil. . . Read More