as almost as pale as Regina now, for the thrust had been straight
and sure, and right at her heart. But she was prouder than the peasant
woman who had wounded her.

"I have heard that you saved his life," she said presently. "And he
loves you. You are happy!"

"I should always be happy if he and I were alone in the world," Regina
answered, for she was a little softened by the girl's tone. "But even
now they are trying to part us."

"To part you?" Again Aurora looked up suddenly. "Who is trying to do
that? A woman?"

Regina laughed a little.

"You are jealous," she said. "That shows that you love him still. No. It
is not a woman."

"Corbario?" The name rose instinctively to Aurora's lips.

"Yes," Regina answered. "That is why I am left alone this morning.
Signor Corbario is at Saint Moritz and Marcello is gone down to see him.
I know he is trying to separate us. You did not know that he was so
near?"

"We only came yesterday afternoon," Aurora answered. "We did not know
that--that Signor Consalvi was here, or we should not have come at all."

It had stung her to hear Regina speak of him quite naturally by his
first name. Regina felt the rebuke.

"I am truly sorry that I should have accidentally found myself in your
path," she said, emphasising the rather grand phrase, and holding her
handsome head very high.

Aurora almost smiled at this sudden manifestation of the peasant's
nature, and wondered whether Regina ever said such things to Marcello,
and whether, if she did, they jarred on him very much. The speech had
the very curious effect of restoring Aurora's sense of superiority, and
she answered more kindly.

"You need not be sorry," she said. "If you had not chanced to be here I
should probably be lying amongst the rocks down there with several
broken bones."

"If it were not by my fault I should not care," Regina retorted, with
elementary frankness.

"But I should!" Aurora laughed, in spite of herself, and liking this
phase of Regina's character better than any she had yet seen. "Come,"
she said, with a sudden generous impulse, and holding out her hand,
"let us stop quarrelling. You saved me from a bad accident, and I was
too ungenerous to be grateful. I thank you now, with all my heart."

Regina was surprised and stared hard at her for a moment, and then
glanced at her outstretched hand.

"You would not take my hand if there were any one here to see."

"Why not?"

"Because they have told you