ensely blue under a wide, clear heaven, broke in dazzling foam on the
red-brown sand.

She seemed to be alone between sea and sky, save for two figures
approaching from the south--a fisher-boy with a shrimping-net and a man
walking bareheaded. She noticed them idly. A mirage of sun was between
her and them, and the agony of remorse and despair which held her
blunted all perceptions.

Thus it was that not till she was close upon him did her dazzled sight
recognize Geoffrey Cliffe.

He saw her first, and stopped in motionless astonishment on the edge of
the sand. She almost ran against him, when his voice arrested her.

"Lady Kitty!"

She put her hand to her breast, wavered, and came to a stand-still. He
saw a little figure in black between him and those "gorgeous towers and
cloud-capped palaces" of Alpine snow, which dimly closed in the north;
and beneath the drooping hat a face even more changed and tragic than
that which had haunted him since their meeting of the day before.

[Illustration: "SHE THOUGHT OF CLIFFE STANDING BESIDE THE DOOR OF THE
GREAT HALL."]

"How do you do?" she said, mechanically, and would have passed him.
But he stood in her path. As he stared at her an impulse of rage ran
through him, resenting the wreck of anything so beautiful--rage against
Ashe, who must surely be somehow responsible.

"Aren't you wandering too far, Lady Kitty?" His voice shook under the
restraint he put upon it. "You seem tired--very tired--and you are
perhaps farther from your gondola than you think."

"I am not tired."

He hesitated.

"Might I walk with you a little, or do you forbid me?"

She said nothing, but walked on. He turned and accompanied her. One or
two questions that he put to her--Had she companions?--Where had she
left her gondola?--remained unanswered. He studied her face, and at last
he laid a strong hand upon her arm.

"Sit down. You are not fit for any more walking."

He drew her towards some logs of driftwood on the upper sand, and she
sank down upon them. He found a place beside her.

"What is the matter with you?" he said, abruptly, with a harsh
authority. "You are in trouble."

A tremor shook her--as of the prisoner who feels on his limbs the first
touch of the fetter.

"No, no!" she said, trying to rise; "it is nothing. I--I didn't know it
was so far. I must go home."

His hand held her.

"Kitty!"

"Yes." Her voice was scarcely audible.

"Tell me what hurts you! Tell me why