ne shall be mine!"

She looked at him steadily.

"We have not met, Leonardo, since the night after the concert. Do you
know that we had an adventure on the way home?"

"Tell me about it," he answered, looking away.

"Is there any need, Leonardo?"

A faint tinge of color stole into his olive cheek.

"You guessed then," he said. "Tell me, does she know? Has she any idea?"

"None."

"She does not suspect me at all?"

"No; she thinks that it was an ordinary attack by robbers, and that the
carriage was to take us a little way into the interior, so that they
might hold us and demand a ransom. It was her own idea; I said nothing.
I feel as though I were deceiving her, but I cannot tell her. She would
never look upon your face again, Leonardo."

"You must not tell her," he muttered. "Swear that you will not!"

She shook her head.

"There is no need. I am not anxious to denounce my own brother as a
would-be abductor."

"Margharita, I was desperate," he cried passionately. "And that cursed
Englishman, he has become my evil genius. It was a miserable chance that
enabled him to become your preserver."

"It was a very fortunate one for you, Leonardo."

"What do you mean?" he cried sharply. "Tell me, has he been here?"

"Yes."

He seemed to calm himself with a great effort. He was on the threshold
of what he had come to know. He must keep cool, or she would tell him
nothing.

"Margharita," he said slowly, "the time is fast coming when I shall have
no more favors to ask you. Will you remember that you are my sister, and
grant me a great one now?"

"If I can, Leonardo."

"It is good. I shall not ask you anything impossible or unreasonable.
Tell me the truth about Adrienne and this Englishman, Tell me how you
have spent your days since this affair, and how often he has been here.
Then tell me what you yourself think. Tell me whether she cares for him;
and he for her. Let me hear the whole truth, so that I may know how to
act."

There was a moment's silence. A yellow-breasted bird flew between them,
and a shower of rhododendron blossoms fell at their feet. The lazy
murmur of insects floated upon the heavy afternoon air, so faint and
breathless that the leaves which grew thick around them scarcely
rustled. A clump of pink and white hyacinths grew out of the wall, the
waxy heads bent with the weight of their heavy, bell-shaped petals. She
snapped off a white blossom, and toyed with it in her fingers for a
momen