rainger.

"What is it, Giacomo? What do you mean?" she cried.

"Just one moment, signora; half a minute here," he said.

Well accustomed to the tone of secrecy assumed by Italians on occasions
the least important, Miss Grainger followed him outside, and there,
under the glare of the hall-lamp, stood Calvert, pale, his hair
dishevelled, his cravat loosened, and his coat-sleeve torn. "Save me!
hide me!" said he, in a low whisper. "Can you--will you save me?"

She was one not unfitted to meet a sudden change; and, although secretly
shocked, she rallied quickly, and led him into a room beside the hall "I
know all," said she. "We all knew it was your name."

"Can you conceal me here for a day--two days at furthest?"

"A week, if you need it."

"And the servant--can he be trusted?"

"To the death. I'll answer for him."

"How can you keep the secret from the girls?"

"I need not; they must know everything."

"But Florence; can she--has she forgiven me?"

"Yes, thoroughly. She scarcely knows about what she quarrelled with you.
She sometimes fears that she wronged you; and Milly defends you always."

"You have heard--you know what has happened to me?"

"In a fashion: that is, we only know there has been a duel. We feared
you had been wounded; and, indeed we heard severely wounded."

"The story is too long to tell you now; enough, if I say it was all
about Sophy. You remember Sophy, and a fellow who was to have married
her, and who jilted her, and not only this but boasted of the injury
he had done her, and the insult he had thrown on us. A friend of
mine, Barnard, a brother officer, heard him--but why go on with this
detail?--there was a quarrel and a challenge, and it was by merest
accident I heard of it, and reached Basle in time. Of course, I was not
going to leave to Barnard what of right belonged to me. There were, as
you can imagine, innumerable complications in the matter. Rochefort, the
other man's friend, and a French fellow, insisted on having a finger in
the pie. The end of it was, I shot Graham and somebody else--I believe
Rochefort--put a bullet into Barnard. The Swiss laws in some cantons
are severe, and we only learned too late that we had fought in the very
worst of them; so I ran, I don't know how, or in what direction. I lost
my head for a while, and wandered about the Voralberg and the Splugen
for a week or two. How I find myself now here is quite a mystery to me."

There was a haggard wildne