he ever forget? Was it not she who had cast him
into hell--she, with her own right hand?

She had let the moment slip by. He rose hastily and sat down by the
table, covering his eyes with one hand and biting his lip as if he would
bite it through.

Presently he looked up and said quietly:

"I am afraid I startled you."

She held out both her hands to him. "Dear," she said, "are we not
friends enough by now for you to trust me a little bit? What is it?"

"Only a private trouble of my own. I don't see why you should be worried
over it."

"Listen a moment," she went on, taking his hand in both of hers to
steady its convulsive trembling. "I have not tried to lay hands on a
thing that is not mine to touch. But now that you have given me, of your
own free will, so much of your confidence, will you not give me a little
more--as you would do if I were your sister. Keep the mask on your face,
if it is any consolation to you, but don't wear a mask on your soul, for
your own sake."

He bent his head lower. "You must be patient with me," he said. "I am
an unsatisfactory sort of brother to have, I'm afraid; but if you only
knew---- I have been nearly mad this last week. It has been like South
America again. And somehow the devil gets into me and----" He broke off.

"May I not have my share in your trouble?" she whispered at last.

His head sank down on her arm. "The hand of the Lord is heavy."

PART III.

CHAPTER I.

THE next five weeks were spent by Gemma and the Gadfly in a whirl
of excitement and overwork which left them little time or energy for
thinking about their personal affairs. When the arms had been safely
smuggled into Papal territory there remained a still more difficult and
dangerous task: that of conveying them unobserved from the secret stores
in the mountain caverns and ravines to the various local centres and
thence to the separate villages. The whole district was swarming with
spies; and Domenichino, to whom the Gadfly had intrusted the ammunition,
sent into Florence a messenger with an urgent appeal for either help or
extra time. The Gadfly had insisted that the work should be finished
by the middle of June; and what with the difficulty of conveying heavy
transports over bad roads, and the endless hindrances and delays caused
by the necessity of continually evading observation, Domenichino was
growing desperate. "I am between Scylla and Charybdis," he wrote. "I
dare not work quickly, fo