She paced back and forth in the small space which she had explored and found free from obstruction. Three steps forward and turn—three steps back and turn; pausing each time to hold her breath and listen, while the fingers of her left hand involuntarily crept down and pressed against the keen point of the dagger until it pierced through her glove and entered the tender flesh.
Suddenly a white ray of light shot through the transom above her, falling at an angle against a projection in the wall at her left, and dimly illuminating the entire place. It was six o'clock, and the large arc light just outside was turned on. Then, as she reached the door and whirled quickly in her march, she saw her for whom she waited standing at the extreme farther end of the long hall. Between them was what appeared to be a narrow and ornamented archway.
She could dimly distinguish the figure clad in gray. The face, like her own, was veiled. She noticed with quick satisfaction that her disguise was perfect—the counterpart was exact even to the smallest detail.
Without hesitation, and concealing the dagger in the folds of her dress, she advanced quickly and silently toward her rival, who, somewhat to her surprise, instead of fleeing or crying out, also advanced. She was going to try strength with her.
"I will kill her with a blow," she muttered.
They were now within a few feet of each other—the ornamented arch exactly between them. Suddenly Evelin March snatched the dagger from its concealment and raised it aloft to strike. As she did so her rival made precisely the same movement, and something glittered in her hand also. Both took a quick, forward step, and each, at the same instant, struck fiercely with a swinging, downward blow.
A hissing metallic report, a low moan and the sound of a falling body—then silence.
A moment later the hall door burst open for a second time, and in the flood of electric light that poured in, Julian Paul Goetze saw a gray, veiled figure, stretched upon the floor, the gloved hand clasping a jeweled hilt, the blade of which was buried in her bosom. A stream of crimson was discoloring the fabric of her dress, and spreading in a dark pool on the rich carpet.
Rushing forward he caught up the prostrate form and tore away the veil.
Then, as if by magic, a revelation swept over him in one mighty wave of horror. The strange, piteous look he had once seen on the face of Evelin March was again before him, and while he gazed he saw it melting—melting, almost insensibly, like the blending outlines of a dissolving view—into the saintly loveliness of Eva Delorme.