But the web of fate is wonderfully
woven. Barnard had propounded those sentiments through the medium of a
name--a name which was to be indelibly printed upon Clodagh's memory by
the strangely opportune appearance of its owner.

At the moment when the gondolas passed, at the moment when Barnard
laughingly explained the stranger's identity, the name of Walter Gore
took on a new significance, became a personal element in touch with her
own existence.

In studying the effect of this incident upon her actions, it must be
borne in mind that Clodagh's moral position was strangely
incongruous--a position to which not one amongst her new acquaintances
possessed a key. She was a married woman with the vitality, the
curiosity, the sense of adventure of a girl in her first season. She
was like a plant that, having been shut for long in dark places, is
suddenly exposed to the influences of warmth and light. She glowed, she
blossomed, she expanded under every passing touch.

As she leant back against the cushions of the gondola and met the
amused and quizzical glance that accompanied Barnard's explanation, her
thoughts sprang forward under a certain stimulus of excitement; her
blood--the blood of a reckless, adventurous race--leaped suddenly in
response to a new idea. She looked up at her companion, her face
glowing, her hands clasped lightly in her lap.

"Mr. Barnard," she said, "will Sir Walter Gore be at the Palazzo
Ugochini to-night?"

Barnard met her glance. For a moment he studied her whimsically, then
he responded by putting a question of his own.

"Mrs. Milbanke," he asked, "is it true that when you dare an Irishwoman
to do a certain thing, that thing is as good as done?"

Clodagh's lashes fluttered, and she coloured hotly; then with the naive
defiance, the intoxication of youthful assurance, she lifted her eyes
again and gave another bright, clear laugh.

"Two unanswered questions should be as good as one reply!" she said,
looking straight into his face.

All that day Clodagh went about her concerns with a delightful, furtive
sense of things to come. In the evening she came down to dinner arrayed
in a dress of lace and embroidery that had come from Vienna only three
weeks before. The dress possessed sweeping lines that defined her
slight figure; and above the jewelled lace of the bodice her graceful
shoulders, smooth as ivory, and as warm in tone, showed bare of any
ornament. The faint olive of her skin was enr