a brave man, morally or physically, and he was
glad that his wife had left him. She had put him in the right, and he
had every reason for refusing ever to see her again. With a cynicism
which would have been revolting if it had not been almost childlike in
its simplicity, he discharged his servants, sold his furniture, gave up
his apartment in the Corso, and moved back to his old quarters in the
Palazzetto Borgia. But he did not acknowledge Gloria's note in any other
way.

She had left him, and he wished to blot out her existence as though he
had never known her, not even remembering the long two years of his
married life. She was gone. There was no Gloria, and he wished that
there never had been any woman with her name and face.

On the third day, he met Paul Griggs in the street. The younger man saw
Reanda coming, and stood still on the narrow pavement, in order to show
that he had no intention of avoiding him. As the artist came up, Griggs
lifted his hat gravely. Reanda mechanically raised his hand to his own
hat and passed the man who had injured him, without a word. Griggs saw a
slight, nervous twitching in the delicate face, but that was all. He
thought that Reanda looked better, less harassed and less thin, than for
a long time. He had at once returned to his old peaceful life and
enjoyed it, and had evidently not the smallest intention of ever
demanding satisfaction of his former friend.

Francesca Campodonico had listened in nervous silence to Reanda's story.

"She has done me a kindness," he concluded. "It is the first. She has
given me back my freedom. I shall not disturb her."

The colour was in Francesca's face, and her eyes looked down. Her
delicate lips were a little drawn in, as though she were making an
effort to restrain her words, for it was one of the hardest moments of
her life. Being what she was, it was impossible for her to understand
Gloria's conduct. But at the same time she felt that she was liberated
from something which had oppressed her, and the colour in her cheeks was
a flash of satisfaction and relief mingled with a certain displeasure at
her own sensations and the certainty that she should be ashamed of them
by and bye.

It was not in her nature to accept such a termination for Reanda's
married life, however he himself might be disposed to look upon it.

"You are to blame almost as much as Gloria," she said, and she was
sincerely in earnest.

She was too good and devout a woman