y exile and
forget her. Yet since I am here, grant me a last favor. Let me see her
to say farewell."

She looked up at him in distress.

"Leonardo, how can I? She has given orders that under no circumstances
whatever are you to be admitted."

"But to say farewell!"

"She would not believe it. It has been so before, Leonardo, and then you
have been passionate, and pleaded your cause all over again. I have
promised that I will never ask her to see you again."

"Then let me see her without asking. You can find an opportunity, if you
will. For my sake, Margharita!"

She laid her troubled, tear-stained face upon his shoulder.

"It is wrong of me, Leonardo. Yet, if you will promise me to say
farewell, and farewell only----"

"Be it so! I promise!"

"Well, then, each night we have walked past the Marina, and home by the
mountain road. It is a long way round and it is lonely; but we have
Pietro with us, and on these moonlight nights the view is like
fairy-land."

"And will you come that way home to-night, after the concert?"

"Yes."

"It is good."

"You will remember your promise, Leonardo," she said anxiously.

"I will remember," he answered. "And, Margharita, since this is to be
our farewell, I have something to say to you also, before I pass away
from your life into my exile. In Rome I was told a thing which for a
moment troubled me. I say for a moment, because it was for a moment only
that I believed it. The man who told me was my friend, or he would have
answered to me for it, as for an insult. Shall I tell you, Margharita,
what this thing was?"

Her face was troubled, and her eyes were downcast. The Sicilian watched
her confusion with darkening brows. Since she made no answer, he
continued:

"They told me, Margharita, that you, a Marioni, daughter of one of
Europe's grandest families, daughter of a race from which princes have
sprung, and with whom, in the old days, kings have sought alliance, they
told me that you were betrothed to some low American, a trader, a man
without family or honor. They told me this, Margharita, and I answered
them that they lied. Forgive me for the shadow of a doubt which crossed
my mind, sister. Forgive me that I beg for a denial from your own lips."

She lifted her head. She was pale, but her dark eyes had an indignant
sparkle in them.

"They did lie, Leonardo," she answered firmly, "but not in the fact
itself. It is true that I am engaged to be married."

"Betrothe