was something inexorable in her voice. She turned away from him
and began to speak softly to Peppina.

Artois obeyed and left her.

He knew that just then she would not acknowledge his authority. As he
went slowly up the steps he wondered--he feared. Peppina had cried
with the fury of despair, and the Neapolitan who is desperate knows no
reticence.

Was the red sign of passion to be scored already upon Vere's white life?
Was she to pass even now, in this night, from her beautiful ignorance to
knowledge?

CHAPTER XVII

That night the Marchesino failed in his search for Vere, and he returned
to Naples not merely disappointed but incensed. He had learned from
a fisherman in the Saint's Pool that she was out upon the sea "with a
Signore," and he had little difficulty in guessing who this Signore was.
Of course it was "Caro Emilio," the patron of Maria Fortunata. He began
to consider his friend unfavorably. He remembered how frankly he had
always told Emilio of his little escapades, with what enthusiasm, in
what copious detail. Always he had trusted Emilio. And now Emilio
was trying to play him false--worse, was making apparently a complete
success of the attempt. For Emilio and Vere must have heard his
beautiful singing, must have guessed from whom that vibrant voice
proceeded, must have deliberately concealed themselves from its
possessor. Where had they lain in hiding? His shrewd suspicion fell upon
the very place. Virgilio's Grotto had surely been their refuge.

"Ladro! Vigiliacco!" Words of no uncertain meaning flowed from his
overcharged heart. His whole hot nature was aroused. His spirit was
up in arms. And now, almost for the first time, he drew a comparison
between his age and Emilio's. Emilio was an old man. He realized it.
Why had he never realized it before? Was he, full of youth, beauty,
chivalrous energy and devotion, to be interfered with, set aside, for
a man with gray hairs thick upon his head, for a man who spent half his
hours bent over a writing-table? Emilio had never wished him to know the
ladies of the island. He knew the reason now, and glowed with a
fiery lust of battle. Vere had attracted him from the first. But this
opposition drove on attraction into something stronger, more determined.
He said to himself that he was madly in love. Never yet had he been
worsted in an amour by any man. The blood surged to his head at the
mere thought of being conquered in the only battle of life worth
f