gaze. Seizing her in my arms, I kissed her again and again.

“I have always suspected — what — what Alresca says,” she murmured.

“But you love me?” I cried passionately.

“Do you need to be told, my poor Carl?” she replied, with the most exquisite melancholy.

“Then I’ll defy hell itself!” I said.

She hung passive in my embrace.