NO more perfect place could have been imagined for an exchange of confidences and sympathy between two girls situated as Alma and Isma were than the oval, daintily-cushioned interior of the Cygna, as Isma had called her swan-prowed craft.

Skirting the mountains, at a distance of about five hundred yards from them, and at a height of about as many feet from the summits of the undulating foothills below, the Cygna sped quietly along at a speed of some twenty-five miles an hour. The temperature of the tropic night was so soft and warm, and the air was so dry that it was not even necessary for them to make use of the light wraps that lay in the stern of the boat.

Isma reclined in the after part of the broad, low seat which ran round the inside, with one hand resting lightly upon a little silver lever which could be used for working the rudder-fan, in addition to the tiller-ropes, which she held in her hands while standing up. Alma sat almost upright amidships, with one hand clasped on the rail of polished satin-wood which ran round the well of the boat, her head turned away from Isma and her eyes fixed upon two dim points of light far away to the southward, which marked the position of the two moonlit, snowy peaks which guarded the southern confines of the valley.

For several minutes they proceeded thus in silence, which neither seemed inclined to break. At length Isma looked up[103] at a planet that was shining redly over the northern mountains, and, possessed by a sudden inspiration, said—

“Look, Alma, there is Mars returning to our skies!”

“Yes,” said Alma, turning round and gazing from beneath her slightly-frowning brows at the ruddy planet; “it is a fitting time for him to come back now that, after all these years of peace and happiness, human wickedness and ambition have brought the curse of war back again on earth.”

“Yes,” said Isma. “If there were anything in what the old astrologers used to say we could look upon his rising as an omen. And yet we have very little reason surely for taking as an emblem of war a world in which wars have been unheard of for thousands of years.”

“I wonder when that time will come on earth?” said Alma bitterly. “If ever it does! We terrestrials seem to be too hopelessly wicked and foolish for such wisdom as that.

“Mankind will never have a fairer opportunity of working out its redemption than it had after the Terror, and yet here, after four generations of peaceful happiness and prosperity, the wickedness of one woman is able to set the world ablaze again. Our forefathers were wise, but they would have been wiser still if they had stamped that vile brood out utterly. Their evil blood has been the one drop of venom that has poisoned the whole world’s cup of happiness!”

As Alma spoke these last words her grey eyes grew dark with sudden passion under her straight-drawn brows. Her breast heaved with a sudden wave of emotion, and the sentences came quickly and fiercely from the lips which Isma had never heard speak in anger before.

“Yes,” she replied, rather sadly than angrily, “perhaps it would have been better for the world if they had done so, or, at anyrate, if they had shut them up for life, as they did the criminals and the insane in the middle of the last century. But we must remember, even in our own sorrow and anger, that this Olga Romanoff is in her way not altogether unlike our own Angel was in hers.”

“Surely you’re speaking sacrilege now!” interrupted Alma.[104] “How can the evil be like the good under any circumstances?”

“No, I am not,” said Isma, with a smile. “Remember how Natasha was trained up by the Master in undying hate of Russian tyranny, and how she inherited the legacy of revenge from her mother and him. No doubt this Olga has done the same, and she has been taught to look upon us as the Terrorists looked upon the Tsar and his family.

“We are the descendants of those who flung her ancestor from his throne, extinguished his dynasty, and sent him to die in Siberia. I would kill her with my own hand if I could, and believe that I was ridding the world of a curse, but surely we two daughters of Aeria are wise enough to be just even to such an enemy as she is.”

“But she has done worse than kill us,” Alma almost hissed between her clenched teeth. “If she had a thousand lives and we took them one by one they would not expiate her crime against us, or equal the hopeless misery that she has brought upon us.

“What is mere death, the swift transition from one stage of existence to another, compared with the hopeless death-in-life to which her wanton wickedness has condemned you and me, or to the calamities which she has brought upon the world?”

“It is nothing, I grant you,” said Isma. “But still I do not agree with you about that hopeless death-in-life, as you call it. Our present sorrow is great and heavy enough, God knows, but for me at least it is not hopeless, nor will it be for you when the first stress of the storm is over.”

“What do you mean?” cried Alma, almost as fiercely as before, and leaning forward and looking through the dusk into her face as though she hardly credited her ears. “Do you mean to say that either you or I could ever”—

“Yes,” said Isma, interrupting her, and speaking now with eager animation. “Yes, I mean just what you were going to say. And some day, I believe, you will think as I do.”

Alma shook her head in mournful incredulity, and Isma noticing the gesture went on—

[105]

“Yes, you will! The reason that you do not agree with me now is that yours is a deeper and stronger nature than mine. You are like the sea, and I am like the lake. Your grief and anger struck you dumb at first.

“You were in a stupor when I found you on the terrace, and now the depths of your nature are broken up and the storm is raging, and until it is over you will see nothing but your own sorrow and anger.

“But with me the storm broke out at once, and I ran to my room and threw myself upon my bed and sobbed and wailed until my mother thought I was going mad. You have not wept yet, and it will be well for you when you do. Your nature is prouder than mine, and it will take longer to melt, but it must melt some time, for we are both women, after all, and then you will see hope through your tears, as I did.”

Alma shook her head again, and said in a low, sad, steady voice—

“I can never see hope until I can see Alan as he was when he left me, and you know that is impossible.”

“You will never see him again as he was,” replied Isma gently. “But that is no reason why you should not see him better than he was.”

“Better?” exclaimed Alma, with an involuntary note of scorn in her voice, which brought a quick flush to Isma’s cheek, and a flash into her eyes for her brother’s sake. “Better! How can that be?”

“Just as the man who has fallen and risen again of his own native strength, is better and stronger than the man who has never been tempted,” replied Isma almost hotly.

“Remember the lessons we have learnt ............