of strange vision, that the world,
action, life had ceased for him at the moment when Captain Harm's
blow fell on his brow.

He was passing in at the door, a guard at either elbow, when the girl
spoke in the shadow.

"Arrivederci, Luigi," she called. "Till we meet again, Luigi."

From the doorway came the prisoner's reply: "Addio, adieu,
signorina!" Then the guardhouse received him.

Jovannic turned. The girl was walking away already, going slowly in
the direction of the wing of the great house that was left to her and
her mother. He joined her, and they came together from the night of
the yew-walk to where, upon the open lawn, the air was still aflood
with the last light of the dying sun.

For a while he did not speak; her mood of tragedy enveloped them both
and hushed him. But never before had he had her thus alone; even to
share her silence was a sort of intimacy, and he groped for more.

"It it is really true, signorina what the sergeant said?" he asked at
length.

She raised her face but did not look towards him. Her profile was a
cameo upon the dusk. "It is true," she answered in a low voice.

"I don't know what to do," said Jovannic. "But you know, signorina,
it was not I that struck him. I had nothing to do with it. I, I hope
you believe that."

Still she gazed straight ahead of her. "I know who struck him," she
said in the same low, level voice.

"Well, then isn't there anything one could do?" pressed Jovannic. "To
stop him from killing himself, I mean. You see, he can't be tied or
watched continually. You know these people. If you could suggest
something, signorina, I'd do what I could."

She seemed to consider. Then "No," she answered; "nothing can be
done." She paused, and he was about to speak when she added: "I was
wrong to try to persuade him."

"Wrong!" exclaimed Jovannic. "Why?"

"It is your punishment," she said. "They have doomed you. You made
them slaves but they make you murderers!" She turned to him at last,
with dark eyes wide and a light as of exaltation in her face. Her
voice, the strong, restrained contralto of the south, broke once as
she went on, but steadied again. "You must not strike an Italian; it
is dangerous. It is more than death, it is damnation! A blow and they
will strike back at your soul and your salvation, and you cannot
escape! Oh, this people and I would have persuaded him to live!"

She shrugged and turned to go on. They had reached the end of the
wing in w