service I
doubt your bribing him."

Upon this they had parted, each well aware that, but a few weeks ago,
this small expedition would have been planned together, discussed,
shared, as a matter of course. At parting he kissed her hand--he had
always exquisite manners; and she wished him a pleasant day with a
voice quite cheerful and unconstrained.

From the sunlit terrace she looked almost straight down upon the
garden of Mrs. Hake's villa. The two little girls were at play
there. She heard their voices, shrill above the sound of the church
bells. Now and again she caught a glimpse of them, at hide-and-seek
between the ilexes.

She was thinking. If only fate had given her children such as these!
. . . As it was, she could show a brave face. But what could the
future hold?

She heard their mother calling to them. They must have obeyed and
run to her, for the garden fell silent of a sudden. The bells, too,
were ceasing--five or six only tinkled on.

She leaned forward over the balustrade to make sure that the children
were gone. As she did so, the sound of a whimper caught her ear.
She looked down, and spoke soothingly to a small dog, an Italian
greyhound, a pet of Mr. Langton's, that had run to her trembling, and
was nuzzling against her skirt for shelter. She could not think what
ailed the creature. Belike it had taken fright at a noise below the
terrace--a rumbling noise, as of a cart mounting the hill heavily
laden with stones.

The waggon, if waggon it were, must be on the roadway to the left.
Again she leaned forward over the balustrade. A faint tremor ran
through the stonework on which her arms rested. For a moment she
fancied it some trick of her own pulse.

But the tremor was renewed. The pulsation was actually in the
stonework. . . . And then, even while she drew back, wondering, the
terrace under her feet heaved as though its pavement rested on a wave
of the sea. She was thrown sideways, staggering; and while she
staggered, saw the great flagstones of the terrace raise themselves
on end, as notes of a harpsichord when the fingers withdraw their
pressure.

She would have caught again at the balustrade. But it had vanished,
or rather was vanishing under her gaze, toppling into the garden
below. The sound of the falling stones was caught up in a long, low
rumble, prolonged, swelling to a roar from the city below. Again the
ground heaved, and beneath her--she had dropped on her kn