a book he hurled it at her; but she dodged it, flew at him with every feather starting out in her in mad rage and settled upon his wrist, giving it a stinging bite. He screamed with pain and beat her off. Margaret rushed to him; it was an ugly bite and Clemente was called, who advised heating an iron red-hot and cauterizing the wound, which was accordingly done while Margaret held his arm, the smell of burning flesh making her feel faint and ill. And the culprit watched the proceedings with her bead-like eyes from a dark corner at the top of the wainscoting. Leone was heroic enough during the operation but became very nervous afterwards, was sure he would have hydrophobia, or lockjaw, and fumed himself into a fever, as many healthy people, unfamiliar with pain do, when any slight accident happens, altogether acting like an unreasonable child.

"I will wring Fleurette's neck," he declared, as Margaret assisted him to undress in his helplessness, with his right arm in a sling, as soon as my hand is well."

"If you do, Fauvel will wring yours," she replied; "he loves Fleurette. How was that poor silly bird to know she was wounding our feelings? You lost your temper and you are punished for it."

"I will," he declared again; "I will kill her."

"Nonsense, nonsense," said Margaret soothingly, as she fluffed up his pillow and got him finally to bed.

*

"I will," he repeated darkly, "and I will kill that hideous mal occhio, that scurvy dwarf, that demon who brought misfortune to this house if he ever shows his face here again, and I will kill the slayer of my child!"

"Dear ime," she exclaimed, "what wholesale murder you are going into!" She always tried to make light of it when one of these revengeful moods took possession of him and shame him into a different frame of mind, but to-night he was suffering physically and was harder to manage. "It is lucky for you," she continued, "that you have no enemies, or they might * Evil eye.

make trouble for you, hearing these perpetual threats to kill." "You are so meek, Margherita," he sniffed; "you would let any one do you an injury and never think of avenging yourself. You have no spirit!"

"Oh, yes I have," she retorted, "but I am no assassin." Then she remembered the quieting medicine that Fauvel sometimes gave and after two or three doses, long past midnight he fell asleep.

It was nearly two o'clock when Margaret blew out her candle and got into bed. She was just becoming warm and drowsy, when she remembered that they had never thought to put Fleurette in her cage for the night and cover it with a blanket, as was always done in winter; also that they had forgotten to close the window that had been opened to air the room from the smell of burning flesh, after Clemente had applied the heated iron to the injured wrist. When the fire died out Fleurette would certainly take cold and lose her voice; or, worse still, she might escape through the open window; half the bars were gone, broken and rotted away with age; she had not had her wings clipped since Fauvel left and she could easily fly out and perish in the snow.

66

'Oh, dear," sighed Margaret from the depths of her down quilt, “must I get out of bed to wait on a bird! And it's horribly spooky to go downstairs all alone at this hour in the dark."

It would be cruel to wake Leone, she thought, after he had suffered so much. Well, there was no help for it, she must go down and see that Fleurette was safely disposed of for the night; very reluctantly she threw off her coverings, put her feet into her worsted slippers, lighted a candle and slipped into a warm dressing gown.

"Oh, you nuisance," she said, as she passed into the draughty corridor, shielding the light with her hand to keep it from blowing out and feeling the cold of the cement flooring go through and through her, "to think that I should have to take

all this trouble for a miserable bird; but then it is for Fauvel's sake," and she drew her wrapper tighter around her. How horribly dark it was, and how still! If the castle were haunted, this was exactly the time for the ghosts to appear, and she thought of all the blood-curdling stories she had heard of Rocca Serrata.

For a moment she felt as if she could not go on and was about to turn back when she thought again of Fauvel and of how many times he had put himself out for her, also of the value of his pet. A macaw, speaking three languages, was worth a great deal.

How she wished she had the price that Fleurette represented, and as she went on down the stairs the longing for money came again upon her so strongly that she almost forgot her fears.

CHAPTER XXII

THE LOST JEWELS

"There seated by the fire,

A form of impish mold,
His looks would fear inspire
Despite the tale he told

Of the sparkle of the diamond,
And the glitter of the gold."

The door of the cedar room was open and as Margaret crossed the threshold she was possessed with the uncanny feeling that she was not alone, but when she swept the candle around there was no one to be seen. The fire was not yet out, for from behind the high-backed armchairs where she and Leone had been sitting came a ruddy glow. Fleurette, the macaw, was perched upon her stand, but her feathers were ruffled and she had the air of perceiving something that displeased her.

Margaret set the candle upon the cabinet, held out her arm for the bird, coaxed her upon it and shut her in the cage, arranging the blanket over it, all the time her heart beating with nervous apprehension, she could not tell why. She must close the window, then how she would scurry down the corridor and up the stairs, safely back to her own room. Going over to the window she made it fast by turning long iron rods into rusty sockets, still obsessed with the feeling that there was some one else in the room. As she turned and took up her candle again she heard a sigh, and stood stock-still. Could it be Fleurette? No; it came from the direction of the fireplace. Lifting the light high, she peered around the back of the armchairs, and lying in a heap, in front of the expiring embers, saw a creature covered with a goat-skin mantle that was oozing water from the melting snow upon it. One long arm was stretched out and in his hand he grasped an iron bar which he had evidently

wrenched from the window. He was asleep and as she looked again she recognized the dwarf, the Jettatura, as Carlotta and Leone called him. For a second her heart ceased to beat and she broke into a cold perspiration. Oh, this was horrible!

But Margaret was naturally brave in any real danger.

It was a relief to learn that a human being and not a ghost had given that sigh, yet the helplessness of her situation came over her appallingly; he could strike her senseless in an instant with that piece of iron. She might scream but no one would hear her; Leone's door, far off upstairs, was tightly closed, and the dose she had given him made him sleep soundly. A bell cord, attached to a series of wires leading to Clemente's quarters, hung from an opposite wall, but she would have to cross the length of the room to reach it, and in the cabinet near her was a pistol.

She moved toward the weapon, her soft slippers making no noise, and cautiously opened the door; but just as her hand touched it a log from the fire fell heavily, lighting the room with its sparks, and the dwarf awoke, springing to his feet. Margaret's limbs were trembling so that she could scarcely stand, but the arm she raised was steady as she put her finger on the trigger of the pistol and pointed it at him. She had never used a pistol and did not even know if it were loaded, but she made the bluff. He saw her and saw also the pistol, then staggered back, threw down his weapon which resounded upon the floor, and fell on his knees.

"Signora," he cried, "do not kill me, I am defenceless; I would not harm you if I could, I mean harm to no one. I saw the window open and the firelight tempted me, so I climbed up the dead vines and came in. Signora, have mercy!"

Margaret did not move; she felt her strength returning while the fellow knelt, his arms stretched out in a pleading attitude.

"You have been ordered away from here," she said. know that, and yet you come back again, and like a thief."

'You