ull upon him--"for you!"

They listened for a moment together at the opened window. The red
lights were still burning here and there about the city in the streets
below, and the carnival-like cries and noises still filled the air.

And she watched him anxiously as he and his packet of documents went
down the dangling hemp rope, reached the stone paving of the little
court, and disappeared in the square of light framed by the bake-shop
window.

Then she turned back into the room, startled by a weak and wavering
groan from Pobloff. She went to him, and tried to lift him up on the
bed, but he was too heavy for her overtaxed strength. She wondered, as
she slipped a pillow under his head, why she should be afraid of him in
that comatose and helpless state--why even his white and passive face
looked so vindictive and sinister in the dim light of the room.

But as he moved a little she started back, and caught up what things
she could fling into her Gladstone bag, and put out the light, and
groped her way across the room once more.

Then she flung open the door and stepped out into the hall, with a
feeling that her heart was in her mouth, choking her.

She ceased running as she came to the bend in the hall, for she heard
the sound of voices, and the light grew stronger. She would have
dodged back, but it was too late.

Then she saw that it was Durkin, beside three jabbering and
gesticulating Guardie di Pubblica Sicurezza.

"Oh, there you are!" said his equable and tranquil voice, as he removed
his hat.

She did not speak, accepting silence as safer.

"I brought these gentlemen, for someone told me there was a drunken
Englishman in the halls, annoying you, and I was afraid we might miss
our train!"

She looked at the _gendarmes_ and then on to the excited servants at
their heels, in bewilderment. She was to escape, then, in safety!

"Explain to these gentlemen just what it was," she heard the warningly
suave voice of her husband saying to her, "while I hurry down and order
the carriage!"

She was nervous and excited and incoherent, yet as they followed at her
side down the broad marble staircase she made them understand dimly
that their protection was now unnecessary. No, she had not been
insulted; not directly. But she had been affronted. It was
nothing--only the shock of seeing a drunken quarrel; it had alarmed and
upset her. She paused, caught at the balustrade, then wavered a
little; and three soli