-and don't tell
Angelo."

"I've brought a friend of Mary's who can prove to you both that she
isn't the heroine of that story you and my brother were so quick to
believe," Vanno broke in, lacking patience to hear her through.

With a faint "Oh!" Marie shrank back, looking suddenly smaller and
older. The pretty hand which had pressed Vanno's sleeve dropped heavily
as if its many rings weighed the fingers down. Sickly pale, she fixed
her eyes upon him, unable to speak, though her lips fell apart, seeming
to form the word "Who?"

Vanno waited for no further explaining, but called Peter, who hovered
outside the open door. "Miss Maxwell, will you come?"

Peter appeared instantly, but seeing the Princess, stopped on the
threshold, with the face of one who meets a ghost. "Marie Grant!" she
exclaimed, the two short words explosive as revolver shots.

The figure in white collapsed like a tossed bundle, into a chair. It
seemed that the woman ceased to breathe. In a second the peculiar
freshness of her beauty had shrivelled as if scorched by a rushing
flame. Only her eyes were alive. They moved wistfully from Peter to
Vanno, and from Vanno to the half-open door, as if seeking mercy or
escape. She looked agonized, broken, like a fawn caught in a trap.

Peter turned to Vanno. "This is the girl who ran away from our convent
with a man," she said crudely. "As she's here in the house, how did Mary
come to be suspected?"

"That is my sister-in-law, Princess Della Robbia," Vanno answered. As he
spoke his forehead flamed, and his eyes grew keen as swords. His look
stripped Marie's soul bare of lies.

She held out her hands, but there was no mercy for her then in either
heart. In a moment the two had judged her, with the unhesitating cruelty
of youth. Peter's eyes narrowed in disgust, as if the white thing
cowering in the chair were a noxious animal, a creature to be
exterminated.

"I understand too, very well," she said slowly. "Horrible, wicked woman!
You put the blame of your own sins on my Mary, to save yourself, and
like the saint she is, she let you do it. But I won't. God sent me here,
I see now. You've got to confess, and right my girl."

Tears fell from Marie's eyes. Her face quivered, then crinkled up
piteously as a child's face crinkles in a storm of weeping. "Shut the
door," she stammered between sobs. "For God's sake, shut the door! If
Angelo should come!"

Neither Vanno nor Peter moved. They wished Angelo to com