it all; and Beatrice listened with close attention. One might have supposed that the music and the singing did not reach the ears of either of them, and one would not have been very wrong in that surmise. The tragic fate of John, the Baptist; the unholy, unnatural passion of a depraved soul for the dead lips of a man who had spurned her while he lived; the exquisite music of Strauss; the superb scenery and stage-setting; the rich and gorgeous costumes—all remained unseen and unheard by these two, one intent upon reëstablishing himself in the esteem of Patricia Langdon, the other disturbed by emotions she could not have named, which she would have declined to recognize, even had they presented themselves frankly to her. She had known, of course, of Duncan's love for her friend, but until this hour there had always existed an unformed, unrecognized doubt in the mind of Beatrice that it would ever be requited.

When he had finished, she was still silent, and for so long a time that at last, with some impatience, he bent nearer to her, and exclaimed:

"Well, Beatrice? What do you think of it all?"

She shuddered a little. There was still another interval before she spoke, and then, with calm directness, she replied:

"I think you are both exceedingly brave to be willing to face the situation that exists."

"Eh?" he asked her, not comprehending.

"Why, if you carry out this compact that you have made, if Patricia Langdon becomes your wife according to the terms she has dictated to Melvin—for I can guess, now, what they are—you will both be casting yourselves straight down into hell. I speak metaphorically, of course," she added, with a whimsical smile. "I have been told that there isn't any hell, really. But I mean it, Roderick. If there isn't a hell, you two seem to be bent upon the arrangement of a correct imitation of one."

"How is that?" he demanded, frowning. "I don't know what you mean."

"Our friend has not been named 'Juno' for nothing. She is a strange girl; but I love her, almost as much as you do," Beatrice continued, as if she had not heard his question. "She possesses characteristics, the depth of which I have never been able to sound, and I am her best and closest friend. If you two live up to this agreement, in the spirit in which it was made, and conclude it in the spirit in which she has dictated her conditions to Melvin, I tremble for the consequences that will ensue, for I can almost 

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