facing him, cold but angry.

"You are forgetting yourself, Count di Marioni, and your speech is a
presumption. We have been friends, but, if you wish our friendship to
continue, you will alter your tone. You have no right to speak to me in
that tone, and I expect an apology."

His lips quivered, and he spoke with a strange bitterness.

"No right! Ay, you say well 'no right,' Adrienne. Will you spare me a
few moments alone? I have a thing to say to you."

She frowned and hesitated for a moment. After all, she had a woman's
heart, and she could not choose but pity him.

"Will not another time do, Leonardo?" she asked almost gently. "You see
I have a visitor."

Yes, he saw it. He had looked up into the handsome, debonair face, with
that proud, happy smile upon the parted lips, from the garden path
below. How he hated it.

"I may be summoned away from Palermo at any moment," he said. "Cannot
you spare me a short five minutes? I will go away then."

She looked down at her lover. He rose to his feet promptly.

"I'll have a cigar among the magnolias," he exclaimed. "Call me when I
may come up."

A look passed between them which sent a swift, keen pain through the
Sicilian's heart. Then Lord St. Maurice vaulted over the balcony,
alighting in the garden below, and they were alone.

"Adrienne!" Leonardo cried, and his voice was low and bitter, "I dare
not ask, and yet I must know. Tell me quickly. Don't torture me. You
care for this Englishman?"

"Yes."

"You love him?"

"Dearly. With all my heart."

"You are going to marry him?"

"Yes."

And not all her pity could keep the joy from her tone as she uttered the
last monosyllable.

"My God! My God!"

The suffering in his white face was awful to see. Her eyes filled with
tears. She knew that she had done this man no wrong, that he had never
had a single word of definite encouragement from her, that, time after
time, she had told him that his love was hopeless. Yet her heart was
heavy as she watched his anguish.

"Leonardo!" she said softly, "I am sorry. But surely you do not blame
me? Is it my fault that I love him, and not you? Have I not begged you
often to accept the only answer I could ever give you? Be generous,
Leonardo, and let us be friends."

It was several moments before he spoke, and then it seemed as though
there had been a conflict in the man, and the worse half had conquered.
The dumb grief in his eyes, which had been so piteous to witness