nything more?"

"How, anything more?" he returned, in a daze.

"Then, don't you know? About his falling into the river? I know he
didn't drown himself."

Gregory shook his head. "When--what makes them think"--He stopped and
stared at her.

"Why, they know that he went down to the Ponte Trinity last night;
somebody saw him going: And then that peasant found his hat with his
name in it in the drift-wood below the Cascine--"

"Yes," said Gregory, lifelessly. He let his arms drop forward, and his
helpless hands hang over his knees; his gaze fell from her face to the
floor.

Neither spoke for a time that seemed long, and then it was Clementina
who spoke. "But it isn't true!"

"Oh, yes, it is," said Gregory, as before.

"Mr. Hinkle doesn't believe it is," she urged.

"Mr. Hinkle?"

"He's an American who's staying in Florence. He came this mo'ning to
tell me about it. Even if he's drowned Mr. Hinkle believes he didn't
mean to; he must have just fallen in."

"What does it matter?" demanded Gregory, lifting his heavy eyes.
"Whether he meant it or not, I caused it. I drove him to it."

"You drove him?"

"Yes. He told me what he had said to you, and I--said that he had
spoiled my life--I don't know!"

"Well, he had no right to do it; but I didn't blame you," Clementina
began, compassionately.

"It's too late. It can't be helped now." Gregory turned from the mercy
that could no longer save him. He rose dizzily, and tried to get himself
away.

"You mustn't go!" she interposed. "I don't believe you made him do it.
Mr. Hinkle will be back soon, and he will--"

"If he should bring word that it was true?" Gregory asked.

"Well," said Clementina, "then we should have to bear it."

A sense of something finer than the surface meaning of her words pierced
his morbid egotism. "I'm ashamed," he said. "Will you let me stay?"

"Why, yes, you must," she said, and if there was any censure of him at
the bottom of her heart, she kept it there, and tried to talk him away
from his remorse, which was in his temperament, perhaps, rather than his
conscience; she made the time pass till there came a knock at the door,
and she opened it to Hinkle.

"I didn't send up my name; I thought I wouldn't stand upon ceremony just
now," he said.

"Oh, no!" she returned. "Mr. Hinkle, this is Mr. Gregory. Mr. Gregory
knew Mr. Belsky, and he thinks--"

She turned to Gregory for prompting, and he managed to say, "I don't
believe he was qu