s, and stayed behind
on the Monday to clear and lock up. Stefano! That worm! I could
well understand his threatening a woman with a knife; what beat me was
how any woman could ever have listened to him; above all, that Faustina
should be the one! It passed my comprehension. But I questioned her
as gently as I could; and her explanation was largely the thread-bare
one you would expect. Her parents were so poor. They were so many in
family. Some of them begged--would I promise never to tell? Then
some of them stole--sometimes--and all knew the pains of actual want.
She looked after the cows, but there were only two of them, and
brought the milk to the vineyard and elsewhere; but that was not
employment for more than one; and there were countless sisters waiting
to take her place. Then he was so rich, Stefano.

"'Rich!' I echoed. 'Stefano?'

"'Si, Arturo mio.'

"Yes, I played the game on that vineyard, Bunny, even to going my own
first name.

"'And how comes he to be rich?' I asked, suspiciously.

"She did not know; but he had given her such beautiful jewels; the
family had lived on them for months, she pretending an avocat had taken
charge of them for her against her marriage. But I cared nothing about
all that.

"'Jewels! Stefano!' I could only mutter.

"'Perhaps the Count has paid for some of them. He is very kind.'

"'To you, is he?'

"'Oh, yes, very kind.'

"'And you would live in his house afterwards?'

"'Not now, mia cara--not now!'

"'No, by God you don't!' said I in English. 'But you would have done
so, eh?'

"'Of course. That was arranged. The Count is really very kind.'

"'Do you see anything of him when he comes here?'

"Yes, he had sometimes brought her little presents, sweetmeats,
ribbons, and the like; but the offering had always been made through
this toad of a Stefano. Knowing the men, I now knew all. But
Faustina, she had the pure and simple heart, and the white soul, by the
God who made it, and for all her kindness to a tattered scapegrace who
made love to her in broken Italian between the ripples and the stars.
She was not to know what I was, remember; and beside Corbucci and his
henchman I was the Archangel Gabriel come down to earth.

"Well, as I lay awake that night, two more lines of Swinburne came into
my head, and came to stay:

"God said 'Let him who wins her take
And keep Faustine.'

"On that couplet I slept at last, and it was my te