ast, he thought, the assurance for which he had yearned so long.
Presently he saw Annunciata stop, plunge her hands into a side-pocket,
and pull out something which he imagined to be a key; then she and
the padre disappeared for a few moments in the gloom of a deep portal,
and when Annunciata re-appeared she was alone. She walked rapidly back
through the garden, without being apparently in the least impressed by
the splendor of the night, mounted the stairs to the terrace, and
again passed within a dozen yards of where Cranbrook was sitting,
without observing him.

"Annunciata," he called softly, rising to follow her.

"Signore Giovanni," she exclaimed wonderingly but without the
slightest trace of the emotion which had so recently agitated her.
"You should not sit here in the garden so late. The air of the night
is not good for the foreigner."

"The air is good for me wherever you are, Annunciata," he answered
warmly. "Come and walk with me here down the long plane tree avenue.
Take my arm. I have much to say to you:

'* * * In such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,' etc.
'In such a night,
Troilus, methinks, mounter! the Trojan walls,
And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents
Where Cressid lay that night.'"

She took the arm which he offered her silently, but with a simple
dignity which a princess might have envied her.

"I cannot stay out long," she said. "My mother would miss me."

"I shall not detain you long. I have only a confession to make to you.
I was sitting on the _loggia_ this afternoon when Padre Gregorio came,
and I heard what you said to him."

He had expected her to blush or show some sign of embarrassment. But
she only lifted her calm, clear countenance toward him and said:

"You were kinder and better than all the men I had known, and it gave
me trouble to think that you should be unhappy when you die. Therefore
I asked the padre; but I do not believe any more that the padre is
always right. God is better and wiser than he, and God will find a way
where a priest would find none."

There was something inexpressibly touching in the way she uttered
these simple words. Cranbrook, although he was, for reasons of his
own, disappointed at her perfect composure, felt the tears mounting to
his eyes, and his voice shook as he answered:

"I am not afraid of my lot in the next world, Annunciata; and although
it is kind of you to be