ss the chilled waters.

Lord St. Maurice had fallen asleep, with his head resting upon his arms,
close to the open window. By his side, with the ink scarcely dry upon
either, were his will, and his farewell letter to Adrienne. No one but
himself would ever know the agony, the hopeless grief, which had rent
his heart, as word after word, sentence after sentence of passionate
leave-taking had found their way on to those closely-written sheets of
paper. But it was over now--over and done with. When some faint sound
from below, or a breath of the morning breeze from the bosom of the sea
awoke him, and he commenced making a few preparations for the start, he
was surprised to find how calm he was. The passion of his grief had
spent itself. He thought of those hours before sleep had fallen upon him
with horror, but they seemed to him very far away. He was face to face
with death, but he felt only that he was about to make a journey into an
undiscovered land. His imagination was dulled. He remembered only that
he was going out to meet death, and it behoved him to meet it as an
honorable English gentleman.

He plunged his head into a basin of cold water and made a careful
toilette, not forgetting even the button-hole which Adrienne had fetched
for him with her own fingers on the evening before. Then he quietly left
the hotel, and walked slowly up and down the Marina until Signor Pruccio
arrived.

CHAPTER X

A MARIONI'S OATH

Two men stood facing one another on a narrow belt of sand, stripped to
the shirt, and with rapiers in their hands. One was the Sicilian,
Leonardo di Marioni, the other the Englishman, Lord St. Maurice. Their
attitude spoke for itself. They were about to fight for each other's
life.

It was a fair spot which their two seconds had chosen to stain with
bloodshed. Close almost to their feet, the blue waters of the
Mediterranean, glistening in the early morning sunlight, broke in tiny,
rippling waves upon the firm white sand. Inland was a semi-circle of
steep cliffs, at the base of which there were great bowlders of rock,
fern-covered and with hyacinths of many colors growing out of the
crevices, and lending a sweet fragrance to the fresh morning air. It was
a spot shut off from the world, for the towering cliffs ran out into the
sea on either side, completely enclosing the little cove. There was only
one possible approach to it, save by boat, and that a difficult and
tedious one, and, looking upw