ne.

'That woman will be returning,' he muttered, frowning at the vacant
door. 'I could lay out my whole life before your eyes, and show you I am
unchanged in my love of you since the night when Roland and I walked on
the Piazzetta...'

'Do not remind me; let those days lie black!' A sympathetic vision
of her maiden's tears on the night of wonderful moonlight when, as it
seemed to her now, San Giorgio stood like a dark prophet of her present
abasement and chastisement, sprang tears of a different character, and
weak as she was with her soul's fever and for want of food, she was
piteously shaken. She said with some calmness: 'It is useless to look
back. I have no reproaches but for myself. Explain nothing to me. Things
that are not comprehended by one like me are riddles I must put aside. I
know where I am: I scarcely know more. Here is madame.'

The door had not opened, and it did not open immediately.

Beauchamp had time to say, 'Believe in me.' Even that was false to
his own hearing, and in a struggle with the painful impression of
insincerity which was denied and scorned by his impulse to fling his
arms round her and have her his for ever, he found himself deferentially
accepting her brief directions concerning her boxes at the hotel, with
Rosamund Culling to witness.

She gave him her hand.

He bowed over the fingers. 'Until to-morrow, madame.'

'Adieu!' said Renee.

CHAPTER XLII. THE TWO PASSIONS

The foggy February night refreshed his head, and the business of
fetching the luggage from the hotel--a commission that necessitated the
delivery of his card and some very commanding language--kept his mind
in order. Subsequently he drove to his cousin Baskelett's Club, where he
left a short note to say the house was engaged for the night and perhaps
a week further. Concise, but sufficient: and he stated a hope to his
cousin that he would not be inconvenienced. This was courteous.

He had taken a bed at Renee's hotel, after wresting her boxes from the
vanquished hotel proprietor, and lay there, hearing the clear sound
of every little sentence of hers during the absence of Rosamund: her
'Adieu,' and the strange 'Do you think so?' and 'I know where I am; I
scarcely know more.' Her eyes and their darker lashes, and the fitful
little sensitive dimples of a smile without joy, came with her voice,
but hardened to an aspect unlike her. Not a word could he recover of
what she had spoken before Rosamund's interve