Wherever are you? Nurse! I want you," sang the
uneasy, querulous voice of Mrs. Tuke.

"Do put me down!" murmured Alvina, stirring in his arms.

He slowly relaxed his clasp, and she slid down like rain to earth.
But still he clung to her.

"Come with me, Allaye! Come with me to Italy!" he said.

She saw his face, beautiful, non-human in the moonlight, and she
shuddered slightly.

"Yes!" she said. "I will come. But let me go now. Where is your
mandoline?"

He turned round and looked up the road.

"Nurse! You absolutely _must_ come. I can't bear it," cried the
strange voice of Mrs. Tuke.

Alvina slipped from the man, who was a little bewildered, and
through the gate into the drive.

"You must come!" came the voice in pain from the upper window.

Alvina ran upstairs. She found Mrs. Tuke crouched in a chair, with a
drawn, horrified, terrified face. As her pains suddenly gripped her,
she uttered an exclamation, and pressed her clenched fists hard on
her face.

"The pains have begun," said Alvina, hurrying to her.

"Oh, it's horrible! It's horrible! I don't want it!" cried the woman
in travail. Alvina comforted her and reassured her as best she
could. And from outside, once more, came the despairing howl of the
Neapolitan song, animal and inhuman on the night.

"E tu dic' Io part', addio!
T'alluntare di sta core,
Nel paese del amore
Tien' o cor' di non turnar'
--Ma nun me lasciar'--"

It was almost unendurable. But suddenly Mrs. Tuke became quite
still, and sat with her fists clenched on her knees, her two
jet-black plaits dropping on either side of her ivory face, her big
eyes fixed staring into space. At the line--

Ma nun me lasciar'--

she began to murmur softly to herself--"Yes, it's dreadful! It's
horrible! I can't understand it. What does it mean, that noise? It's
as bad as these pains. What does it mean? What does he say? I can
understand a little Italian--" She paused. And again came the sudden
complaint:

Ma nun me lasciar'--

"Ma nun me lasciar'--!" she murmured, repeating the music. "That
means--Don't leave me! Don't leave me! But why? Why shouldn't one
human being go away from another? What does it mean? That _awful_
noise! Isn't love the most horrible thing! I think it's horrible. It
just does one in, and turns one into a sort of howling animal. I'm
howling with one sort of pain, he's howling with another. Two
hellish animals howli