!
Remember!"

Her tone had passed from earnestness to solemnity; her attitude, her
final gesture, were full of dramatic grace. Beside her, he appeared mean
and insignificant.

"I thank you for your candor, cousin," he said slowly. "If I harm your
lover----"

"If you harm him," she interrupted fiercely, "you will win my undying
hate, even while you are undergoing my vengeance. You know my power,
Leonardo; you know the means which lie ready to my hand. Never doubt but
that I shall use them."

He turned round and walked out of the house, passing Lord St. Maurice in
the garden without even glancing toward him. In the road he paused for a
moment, watching the long shadows pass quivering across the dark hills,
and the gleam of the moonlight upon the water far away below.

"She would never dare!" he murmured to himself. "She is a woman, and she
would forget."

CHAPTER VIII

"DEATH IN THE FACE, AND MURDER IN THE HEART"

Lord St. Maurice was in a good humor with himself and the entire world
that night. He had spent nearly the whole of the day with the woman he
loved, and whom he was shortly to marry, and with the prospect of
another such day on the morrow, even his temporary exile from paradise
was not a very severe trial. He was an ardent suitor, and deeply in
love, but an hour or two alone with a case of excellent cigars, with
delightful thoughts to keep him company, the softest air in Europe to
breathe, and one of the most picturesque sights to look upon, could
scarcely be esteemed a hardship. Above him, among the woods, twinkled
the bright lights of the Villa Fiolesse which he had just quitted, and
below was the gay little Marina, still dotted about with groups of men
in soft hats and light clothes, and bright-eyed, laughing women, whose
musical voices rang out on the still night air with strange
distinctness.

Through the clinging magnolia bushes and rhododendron shrubs he pushed
his way downward, the red end of his cigar shining out like a signal
light in the semi-purple darkness. Every now and then he stopped to take
a breath of air perfumed by a clump of hyacinth, or some star-shaped
flower which had yielded up its sweetness to the softly-falling night.
Now and then, too, he took a lover's look at the stars, and downward to
the softly-heaving bosom of the Mediterranean. All these things seemed
to mean so much more to him now! Adrienne had changed the world, and he
was looking out upon it with differe