s
lips.

"Please--what?" she asked, naturally enough.

"Nothing."

His face quickened as he walked again, and she watched him curiously.

"As friends of one friend, we must be friends," she said, after a pause.
"We have spoken frankly to-night, both of us. It is much better. With
his life between us we can say things, perhaps, which neither of us
would have said before. You are doing all you can. You ask me to do more
than I can--I think. As for his life--let us not talk of what may
happen. I think of it enough, as it is."

She turned as she spoke the last words, for she did not trust her face.
But he heard the true note of sorrow in her tone.

"Is it possible that you do not love him a little?" he asked, in a low
voice.

"It is true," she answered mechanically, as though hearing him in a
dream. "I could never love him."

Then, all at once she straightened herself and left the chimneypiece.

"We must not talk of these things any more," she said. "Good night. We
understand each other, do we not?"

She held out her hand to him, which she very rarely did. He took it
quietly.

"I understand you--yes," he said.

She looked at him a moment longer, smiled faintly, and then left the
room. After she was gone, he sat down in the chair she had occupied,
crossed one knee over the other, folded his hands, and stared at the
carpet. He sat there for a long time, motionless, as though absorbed in
the study of a difficult problem. But his expression did not change, and
he did not speak aloud to himself as some men do when they are alone and
in great trouble, as he was then. He was not a man of theatrical
instincts, nor, indeed, of any great imagination. Least of all was he
given to anything like self-examination, or arguing with his conscience.
He was exceedingly simple in nature. He either loved or hated, either
respected or was indifferent or despised altogether, with no
half-measures nor compromises.

Just then he was merely revolving the situation in his mind, and trying
to see some way of escaping from it, without abandoning his friend. But
no way occurred to him which did not look cowardly, and when he rose
from his seat, he had made up his mind to face his troubles as well as
he could, since he could not avoid them.

He went to Gianluca's room before he went to bed. A small light burned
behind a shade in a corner, and at first he could barely see the white
face on the white pillow. The sick man lay sound asleep