rk as that if you begin to rattle
her about again the first time she bids you?"

"I won't--I won't do it any more."

"You must learn to resist her," I went on.

"Oh, yes, I shall; I shall do so better if you tell me it's right."

"You mustn't do it for me; you must do it for yourself. It all comes
back to you, if you are frightened."

"Well, I am not frightened now," said Miss Tita cheerfully. "She is very
quiet."

"Is she conscious again--does she speak?"

"No, she doesn't speak, but she takes my hand. She holds it fast."

"Yes," I rejoined, "I can see what force she still has by the way she
grabbed that picture this afternoon. But if she holds you fast how comes
it that you are here?"

Miss Tita hesitated a moment; though her face was in deep shadow (she
had her back to the light in the parlor and I had put down my own
candle far off, near the door of the sala), I thought I saw her smile
ingenuously. "I came on purpose--I heard your step."

"Why, I came on tiptoe, as inaudibly as possible."

"Well, I heard you," said Miss Tita.

"And is your aunt alone now?"

"Oh, no; Olimpia is sitting there."

On my side I hesitated. "Shall we then step in there?" And I nodded at
the parlor; I wanted more and more to be on the spot.

"We can't talk there--she will hear us."

I was on the point of replying that in that case we would sit silent,
but I was too conscious that this would not do, as there was something I
desired immensely to ask her. So I proposed that we should walk a little
in the sala, keeping more at the other end, where we should not disturb
the old lady. Miss Tita assented unconditionally; the doctor was coming
again, she said, and she would be there to meet him at the door.
We strolled through the fine superfluous hall, where on the marble
floor--particularly as at first we said nothing--our footsteps were more
audible than I had expected. When we reached the other end--the wide
window, inveterately closed, connecting with the balcony that overhung
the canal--I suggested that we should remain there, as she would see the
doctor arrive still better. I opened the window and we passed out on the
balcony. The air of the canal seemed even heavier, hotter than that of
the sala. The place was hushed and void; the quiet neighborhood had gone
to sleep. A lamp, here and there, over the narrow black water, glimmered
in double; the voice of a man going homeward singing, with his jacket
on his shoulder and hi