le rode in front, in silence; Corbario and the
Contessa followed at a little distance.

"How good you are to my wife!" Folco exclaimed presently, as they
emerged upon the sand. "You are like a sister to her!"

Maddalena glanced at him through her veil. She had small and classic
features, rather hard and proud, and her eyes were of a dark violet
colour, which is very unusual, especially in Italy. But she came from
the north. Corbario could not see her expression, and she knew it.

"You are good to her, too," she said presently, being anxious to be
just. "You are very thoughtful and kind."

Corbario thought it wiser to say nothing, and merely bent his head a
little in acknowledgment of what he instinctively felt to be an
admission on the part of a secret adversary. Maddalena had never said so
much before.

"If you were not, I should never forgive you," she added, thinking
aloud.

"I don't think you have quite forgiven me as it is," Folco answered more
lightly.

"For what?"

"For marrying your best friend."

The little speech was well spoken, so utterly without complaint, or
rancour, or suggestion of earnestness, that the Contessa could only
smile.

"And yet you admit that I am not a bad husband," continued Folco.
"Should you accept me, or, say, my exact counterpart, for Aurora, in a
year or two?"

"I doubt whether you have any exact counterpart," Maddalena answered,
checking the sharp denial that rose to her lips.

"Myself, then, just for the sake of argument?"

"What an absurd question! Do you mind tightening the girth for me a
little? My saddle is slipping."

She drew rein, and he was obliged to submit to the check. As he
dismounted he glanced at Aurora's graceful figure, a hundred yards
ahead, and for one instant he drew his eyelids together with a very
strange expression. He knew that the Contessa could not see his face.

Marcello and Aurora had been companions since they were children, and
just now they were talking familiarly of the place, which they had not
seen since the previous year. All sorts of details struck them. Here,
there was more sand than usual; there, a large piece of timber had been
washed ashore in the winter gales; at another place there was a new
sand-drift that had quite buried the scrub on the top of the bank; the
keeper of the San Lorenzo tower had painted his shutters brown, though
they had always been green; here was the spot where Aurora had tumbled
off her pony when she