made round his feet.

She covered her face with her hands for a moment, not in any shame, but
trying to make herself think.

'You must go now,' she said presently, looking up at him. 'It is enough
to make the strongest man fall ill, to be drenched as you are. You will
lose your voice----'

'What does that matter, if I have found you?' he asked. 'But I will do
as you wish, for it has stopped raining at last, and it is growing
late--you will lose half your sleep to-night.'

'Or all of it!' she answered softly, thinking of his kiss. 'How did you
get up to the loggia? Have you a ladder?'

He had none. He had got over the outer wall by means of a rope with a
grappling-hook fastened to it, which he had thrown up from the canal.
Thence he had reached the loggia without much difficulty, for in the
short intervals during the lessons he had more than once looked down and
had seen that it was quite possible, and more a question of steady
nerves than of great strength and activity. At the level of the loggia a
stone ledge ran round the palace, and along this it was easy to creep on
hands and knees. He had drawn himself up to it from the top of the wall,
which joined the building at the corner of the garden.

'It is easy enough,' Stradella answered. 'And now good-bye. To-morrow
night again, love, an hour before midnight.'

She rose and they joined hands again.

'I ought to tell you not to come,' she said in a weak voice, like a
child's. 'But how can I say it--now--now that----'

If any other word would have followed, it could not. Once more her
closed eyes saw sweet summer lightnings, and the thrill of the flame ran
from her lips through every vital part.

He turned from her at last to unfasten the window, and for a moment she
was too dazed to stop him, though she would have kept him still. Then
she tried to follow him out into the loggia, but he would not let her.

'No, love,' he said, 'your wet shoes would tell tales.'

'But there is danger!' answered Ortensia, holding him by his drenched
sleeve. 'I must know you are safe!'

'When I reach my boat I will whistle softly,' he said.

He was gone in the dark, and she was listening by the open window, her
heart beating so that it seemed as if it must drown any other sound. But
he made no noise as he crept along the ledge to the corner, and then
cautiously let himself down upon the top of the wall, dropping astride
of it then to pull himself along in that position by his