lowly, giving each word its full value,
"that if you won't do this for me, I will kill Mary Grant, and go away
with her jewels, to lead my own life without you. If you choose you can
denounce me. But in no other way, unless you help, and so save her life,
can you prevent me from keeping my word. I love you now, and if you're
brave enough to get fortune and a new start for us at this small risk,
I'll love you all the rest of my life as no woman ever loved a man. If
not----"

"I'll do it!" he answered, the blood streaming up to his face.

She laced her fingers round his neck and drew him against her bosom. For
a moment they stood thus, very still, clasped in each other's arms, her
lips pressed to his.

XXXVI

At last Mary had time to think, and to write to Vanno.

In her dressing-bag, which the caretaker had carried up to her room,
were writing materials. On a table in the middle of the room was the
best lamp in the house. Apollonia had brought it to the beloved
Signorina, as her ancestresses in the wild mountain village might have
laid offerings on Baal's shrine. The new mistress was to have all the
most beautiful and desirable things that the house could provide--was to
have them in spite of herself; for Apollonia's heart held no warmth for
those friends whom the Signorina had placed in the best rooms.

Mary was not conscious of fatigue, yet she sat with her elbows resting
heavily on the table, her chin in her hands. The lamp stood at the left
side; and in front was the great uncurtained window. As her eyes looked
to the stars, it was as if their eyes flashed brightly back, through
rents in the black veil of cloud.

"What am I to say to Vanno?" she asked herself.

The first hopefulness grasped as a crutch for failing courage had broken
down hours ago. At best it had been something unseen to which she might
cling in the dark. She had said: "By and by I shall know what to do. I
won't give him up. I shall tell him I'm innocent. He'll believe in me
without any proof." But now she was face to face with the great
question, and must meet point after point as it was presented to her
mind.

She had promised Marie to keep the secret. She had sworn by her love for
Vanno and Vanno's love for her that she would not tell him nor any one;
that she would not even speak out in confession to a priest. Yes! But
when she promised she did not dream that her whole future happiness and
perhaps Vanno's would depend upon the