y for me to speak. Oh, Cesare, if you had seen his face--it
haunted me for months afterwards! I said: 'I am Dr. Warren's daughter,
and I have come to tell you that it is I who have killed Arthur.' I told
him everything, and he stood and listened, like a figure cut in stone,
till I had finished; then he said: 'Set your heart at rest, my child; it
is I that am a murderer, not you. I deceived him and he found it out.'
And with that he turned and went out at the gate without another word."

"And then?"

"I don't know what happened to him after that; I heard the same evening
that he had fallen down in the street in a kind of fit and had been
carried into a house near the docks; but that is all I know. My father
did everything he could for me; when I told him about it he threw up
his practice and took me away to England at once, so that I should never
hear anything that could remind me. He was afraid I should end in the
water, too; and indeed I believe I was near it at one time. But then,
you know, when we found out that my father had cancer I was obliged to
come to myself--there was no one else to nurse him. And after he died
I was left with the little ones on my hands until my elder brother was
able to give them a home. Then there was Giovanni. Do you know, when
he came to England we were almost afraid to meet each other with that
frightful memory between us. He was so bitterly remorseful for his share
in it all--that unhappy letter he wrote from prison. But I believe,
really, it was our common trouble that drew us together."

Martini smiled and shook his head.

"It may have been so on your side," he said; "but Giovanni had made up
his mind from the first time he ever saw you. I remember his coming back
to Milan after that first visit to Leghorn and raving about you to me
till I was perfectly sick of hearing of the English Gemma. I thought I
should hate you. Ah! there it comes!"

The carriage crossed the bridge and drove up to a large house on the
Lung'Arno. Montanelli was leaning back on the cushions as if too tired
to care any longer for the enthusiastic crowd which had collected round
the door to catch a glimpse of him. The inspired look that his face had
worn in the Cathedral had faded quite away and the sunlight showed the
lines of care and fatigue. When he had alighted and passed, with the
heavy, spiritless tread of weary and heart-sick old age, into the house,
Gemma turned away and walked slowly to the bridge. He