that, to prove her own innocence--as indeed she very
easily could--she would have to prove Marie's guilt. This could not be
avoided. The guilty one in throwing the blame upon another had been as
one who jumps into the sea to avoid fire. Mary could save her friend
from the waves only by giving up her own boat; for in that boat there
was not room for two.

Fear brushed the girl's spirit like the wing of a bat in the dark.
Safety for her with Vanno began to seem far off and more difficult to
attain than she had dreamed when, by silence, she kept her promise to
Marie. And what she had done was largely for Vanno's sake, she repeated
to herself once again. The Princess was his sister-in-law. Her honour
was the Della Robbia's honour.

A way must open. Light must come.

"I think," Mary said, trying not to let the words falter on her lips,
"Vanno won't want proof." But as she spoke, even before she finished,
she recalled how Vanno had at first believed appearances and gossip
against her. Of course it would be different now that he knew her heart
and soul. Still, the bat's wings flapped in the night of her darkening
fear. And Marie's words of the other day echoed in her memory. "The
brothers are alike... they adore purity... and they have a pitying
horror of women who aren't innocent." Could Vanno believe her not
innocent--now? Could his eyes--"stars of love," Marie had called his and
Angelo's--could his eyes that had adored, look at her with the dreadful
coldness of Angelo's at this moment, the coldness which would be death
for Marie?

As something far down within herself asked the question, another thought
stood out clear and sharp-cut. She had promised Marie not to tell Vanno,
not even to "tell a priest in confession." Yet she must tell, for after
all that had happened she could not bear to let Vanno take her on faith
alone.

Angelo's answer came like a confirmation of her resolve.

"It's not only a question of what Vanno may want," he said, with a very
evident effort not to be harsh to a woman, defenceless if guilty. "You
don't seem to realize, Miss Grant, that--both he and I owe something to
our father--to our forefathers. The men of our family have done things
they ought not to do. History tells of them. But history tells also that
they have never taken wives unworthy to be the mothers of noble sons."

Then at last Mary rose swiftly, bidden to her feet not by Angelo's
haughty eyes but by her own pride of womanhood,