y good. Just now, at any rate,
it is Rosario they want."

Their conversation was interrupted for several moments while she
exchanged greetings with friends passing in and out of the
restaurant. Then she turned again to her companion.

"Tell me," she asked, a little abruptly, "why are you a clerk in the
city? You do not come of that order of people."

"Necessity," he assured her promptly. "I hadn't a sovereign in the
world when your husband engaged me."

"You were not brought up for such a life!"

"Not altogether," he admitted. "It suits me very well, though."

"Poor boy!" she murmured. "You, too, have had evil fortune. Perhaps
the black hand has shadowed us both."

"A man makes his own life," he answered, impulsively, "but you--you
were made for happiness. It is your right."

She glanced for a moment at the rings upon her fingers. Then she
looked into his eyes.

"I married Mr. Weatherley," she reminded him. "Do you think that if
I had been happy I should have done that? Do you think that, having
done it, I deserve to know, or could know, what happiness really
means?"

It was very hard to answer her. Arnold found himself divided between
his loyalty towards the man who, in his way, had been kind to him,
and the woman who seemed to be stepping with such fascinating ease
into the empty places of his life.

"Mr. Weatherley is very much devoted to you," he remarked.

A shadow of derision parted her lips.

"Mr. Weatherley is a very worthy man," she said, "but it would have
been better for him as well as for me if he had kept away from the
Island of Sabatini. Tell me, what did Lady Blennington say about us
last night?"

His eyes twinkled.

"She told me that Mr. Weatherley was wrecked upon the Island of
Sabatini, and that your brother kept him in a dungeon till he
promised to marry you."

She laughed.

"And you? What did you think of that?"

"I thought," he replied, "that if adventures of that sort were to be
found in those seas, I would like to beg or borrow the money to sail
there myself and steer for the rocks."

"For a boy," she declared, "you say very charming things. Tell me,
how old are you?"

"Twenty-four."

"You would not look so old if it were not for that line. You know, I
read characters and fortunes. All the women of my race have done so.
I can tell you that you had a youth of ease and happiness and one
year of terrible life. Then you started again. It is true, is it
not?"

"Very nea