lone again. Give me your hand, and come away."

Annunziata got up, gave her hand, and moved off at Maria Dolores' side,
towards the Castle. "Of course," she said, "if I want to die, I don't
need to lie down in the water. I can die at any moment I wish, by just
shutting my eyes, and holding my breath, and telling my heart seven
times to stop beating. Heart, stop beating; heart, stop beating;--that
way, seven times."

"For the love of Mercy," wailed poor Maria Dolores, almost writhing in
her misery.... Then, suddenly, she breathed a deep sigh of relief, and
fervently exclaimed, "Thank God." John was advancing towards them, down
the rugged pathway.

"Do please come and help me with this perverse and maddening child," she
called to him, in English. "She's frightening me half out of my wits by
threatening to die. She even threatened to drown herself in the Rampio."

"Children of her complexion can't die," said John, in Italian, (and
Annunziata pricked up her ears). "They can only turn into monkeys, and
then they have to live in the forests of Africa, where it is always
dark, and all the men and women are negro savages, and all the other
animals (except the mosquitos and the snakes) are lions and tigers.
Besides, if Annunziata were to turn into a monkey, she couldn't have the
sugared chestnuts that somebody or other has brought her from Roccadoro.
On the chest of drawers in my room there has mysteriously appeared a box
of sugared chestnuts. I thought they were for her, but they're not,
unless she will promise never to turn into a monkey."

Annunziata's eyes had clouded.

"Of course I won't turn into a monkey," she said, in accents at once of
disillusion and disdain. "I did not know there was any such danger. I
should hate to be a monkey." Then her eyes brightened again. "May I go
and get them now?" she asked, wistful and impatient.

"Yes," said John; "be off with you." And she went running lightly up the
hill.

He turned to Maria Dolores. Her face (clear-cut, with its dark hair,
against the red background of her sunshade) was white and drawn with
pain. But she smiled, rather wanly, as her gaze met his, and said, in a
weak voice, "Oh, I am so glad you came. I can't tell you how she was
frightening me." And all at once her eyes filled with tears.

I needn't say whether John was moved, whether it was his impulse to take
her in his arms and dry her tears with kisses. He did actually, on that
impulse, give a perceptible