d him and kissed him.

"Look out for that tin ear!"

"Oh, you great big, loyal, true-hearted man! Open that door and let me get
out to the terrace. I want to sing, sing!"

"He said he was going to Milan in the morning."

She danced to the door and was gone.

"Nora!" he called, impatiently. He listened in vain for the sound of her
return. "Well, I'll take the count when it comes to guessing what a
woman's going to do. I'll go out and square up with the old girl. Wonder
how this news will harness up with her social bug?"

Courtlandt got into his compartment at Varenna. He had tipped the guard
liberally not to open the door for any one else, unless the train was
crowded. As the shrill blast of the conductor's horn sounded the warning
of "all aboard," the door opened and a heavily veiled woman got in
hurriedly. The train began to move instantly. The guard slammed the door
and latched it. Courtlandt sighed: the futility of trusting these
Italians, of trying to buy their loyalty! The woman was without any
luggage whatever, not even the usual magazine. She was dressed in brown,
her hat was brown, her veil, her gloves, her shoes. But whether she was
young or old was beyond his deduction. He opened his _Corriere_ and held
it before his eyes; but he found reading impossible. The newspaper finally
slipped from his hands to the floor where it swayed and rustled unnoticed.
He was staring at the promontory across Lecco, the green and restful hill,
the little earthly paradise out of which he had been unjustly cast. He
couldn't understand. He had lived cleanly and decently; he had wronged no
man or woman, nor himself. And yet, through some evil twist of fate, he
had lost all there was in life worth having. The train lurched around a
shoulder of the mountain. He leaned against the window. In a moment more
the villa was gone.

What was it? He felt irresistibly drawn. Without intending to do so, he
turned and stared at the woman in brown. Her hand went to the veil and
swept it aside. Nora was as full of romance as a child. She could have
stopped him before he made the boat, but she wanted to be alone with him.

"Nora!"

She flung herself on her knees in front of him. "I am a wretch!" she
said.

He could only repeat her name.

"I am not worth my salt. Ah, why did you run away? Why did you not pursue
me, importune me until I wearied? ... perhaps gladly? There were times
when I would have opened my arms had you been the worst sc