d quickly toward me but without taking her arms from the ledge
of the balcony, pressing her adorable chin against her arm.

"'I know this,' she said steadily, 'to-day has made it impossible to go
back to my father. I don't mean for the reason that I mentioned this
morning. Another reason.' And she sighed.

"'What is that reason?' I asked gently.

"'I'm a very unfortunate girl,' she muttered in a hoarse whisper, still
looking steadily at me over her arm. 'I want to tell you so many things,
and I can't, I can't.'

"'But tell me the reason,' I persisted.

"'Oh you must know ... I must get clear of the past--and the present. I
must not tell you the things I know. Let me alone ... and perhaps in
England I shall forget.'

"And after that, of course, nothing could befall us save a silence, in
which we endeavoured to adjust ourselves to the new emotion. For, mind
you, I believe sometimes it would have worked out. She was a woman, and
I believe that she would have conquered her destiny if she had gotten
her chance.... No matter--a bald statement of belief gets us nowhere. So
I shall remember her looking at me in her enchanting fashion over her
arm, a light in her eyes like a light in the darkness at sea, flashing,
and flashing and going out....

"And it was after this silence had endured for a while that our
attention was drawn from our own thoughts by a strange commotion. A
number of the villagers suddenly appeared from round the corner of the
street where we had come, preceding a carriage which moved slowly, being
hampered by the people who pressed close to it all round. As if by magic
the people of the houses opening upon the little square appeared at the
doors and joined the crowd. And then, as the carriage arrived beneath
us, it halted, and the horses looked round toward the well, and we saw
on the seat of the carriage a man in some military uniform, a captain I
imagine, lying diagonally across the vehicle, a handkerchief soaked in
blood about his throat, a gash near one eye, and evidently a wound of
some sort in the arm, for his hand, which pressed against the cushion,
seemed to have adhered to it with the blood running down the sleeve.
The man's dark features had grown livid and his head lolled back with
closed eyes and sagging mouth. And then Pollyni came in quickly to fetch
us down, and we went.

"Our host, who stood by the carriage bareheaded and looking about him
first toward one speaker and then another, gat