e on either side of her body. If she had let go or tried
to stand up, she knew that she must have collapsed. Grasping the edge of
the hammock seemed to lend strength and power of endurance not only to
her body but to her spirit as well. She gave back Mary's gaze steadily,
and was hardly aware of turning her eyes for an instant from the still,
pure face which had never looked so gentle or so sweet; yet she must
have glanced away, for she warmed slowly with the consciousness that
Idina Bland was confused, and that Miss Jewett too was under the
influence of some new emotion which made her appear less hard, less dry,
more like a human being. Hope ran through the veins of Marie in a vital
tide. The desperate instinct of self-preservation had put the right
weapon in her hand. She must go on and use it mercilessly, for she had
touched the weak spot in her enemy's armour. Those two women did not
know everything, after all. Idina had somehow overreached herself. It
was certain that the allies were pausing to recover strength.

"Are you the woman to whom my cousin refers, Miss Grant?" Angelo asked;
and his voice was the voice of the judge, not the protector.

Mary thought of Vanno. The very likeness between this cold voice and the
dear, warm voice of the absent one made the thought a pang. Her eyes
filled with tears. Still she was silent.

"Am I to take your silence as assent?" Angelo asked again, when he had
waited in vain for her to speak, and the waiting had seemed long to
both.

Mary was sitting almost opposite the hammock, in a chair turned slightly
away from it, so that she faced Angelo more fully than she faced Marie,
unless she moved her head purposely, as she had moved it when her eyes
questioned the eyes of her friend. Her hands were loosely clasped in her
lap; and without answering she slowly bowed her head over them. As she
did so, her eyes fell upon the ring Vanno had slipped on her finger with
a kiss that was a pledge, the ring with "Remember eternal" written
inside. The sight of it was a knock at her heart, like the knock of a
rescuer on the door of a beleaguered castle. She did not speak, in her
own defence, for silence was defence of Marie. And little knowing how
she would be tried, she had sworn to defend her friend, sworn by Vanno's
love and her own love for Vanno. It was a vow she would not break if she
could, lest a curse fall in punishment and kill the love which was her
dearest treasure. Yet through all