Page:The traitor; a story of the fall of the invisible empire (IA traitorstoryoffa00dixo).pdf/203

 "You will come again to-morrow?" she said softly.

"I'll report to you again to-morrow evening."

"I shall expect you at eight," she said, extending her hand.

He held it unconsciously for an instant, and wondered if she could feel the pounding of his heart.

He came each evening for a week and spent two hours in the library with Stella until every letter and paper had been thoroughly examined. In a hundred little ways she had made him feel the power and charm of her personality; in no way so keenly, perhaps, as in the long silences during which she sat near with her great brown eyes watching him intently. He could feel their deep mysterious light in whatever direction he turned. In no other way could she have made so powerful an appeal to his imagination. To his poetic fancy, this capacity for silent comradeship in a girl so young revealed a depth of character which he had not suspected.

The real depth of its meaning he could not dream. The moments of exultant triumph, of breathless suspense, of merciless cruelty with which she watched him slowly entering the trap she had set, were safely concealed beneath the childlike expression of her beautiful face.