es in the middle of the island, the apex of the ridge separating the
coast of Vallanza from the coast of Orca.

"Madame Torrebianca? La Nobil Donna Susanna Torrebianca?" She tried
the name on her tongue. "Yes, for an impromptu, Torrebianca is n't
bad. It's picturesque, and high-sounding, and yet not--not
_invraisemblable_. You don't think it _invraisemblable_? So here 's
luck to that bold adventuress, that knightess-errant, the widow
Torrebianca."

She raised her fluffy white fan, as if it were a goblet from which to
quaff the toast, and flourished it aloft.

The poor old Commendatore was mumbling helpless imprecations in his
moustache. One caught the word "atrocious" several times repeated.

"And now," said Susanna brightly, "kiss me on both cheeks, and give me
your benediction."

She moved towards him, and held up her face.

But he drew away.

"My child," he began, impressively, "I have no means to constrain you,
and I know by experience that when you have made up that perverse
little mind of yours, one might as well attempt to reason with a Hebrew
Jew. Therefore I can only beg, I can only implore. I implore you not
to do this fantastic, this incredible, this unheard-of thing. I will
go on my knees to you. I will entreat you, not for my sake, but for
your own sake, for the sake of your dead father and mother, to put this
ruinous vagary from you, to abandon this preposterous journey, and to
stay quietly here in Sampaolo. Then, if you must open up the past, if
you must get into communication with your distant cousin, I 'll help
you to find some other, some sane and decorous method of doing so."

Still once again Susanna's eyes melted, but there was no mockery in
them now.

"You are kind and patient," she said, with feeling; "and I hate to be a
brute. Yet what is there to do? I can't alter my resolution. And I
can't bear to refuse you when you talk to me like that. So--you must
forgive me if I take a brusque way of escaping the dilemma."

She ran to the edge of the quay, and sprang lightly into her boat.

"Avanti--avanti," she cried to the rowers, who instantly pushed the
boat free, and bent upon their oars.

Then she waved her disfranchised guardian a kiss.

"Addio, Commendatore. I 'll write to you from Venice."

II

It was gay June weather, in a deep green English park: a park in the
south of England, near the sea, where parks are deepest and greenest,
and June weather, when it