life-long
friendship, unbroken as the calm of the summer ocean, perfect as the
cloudless sky of those golden autumn days.

For a time, the dark wraith of sin faded, and there was no music in the
air, and her cheek was cool, while she looked all the world in the face
with the fearless eyes of a child-empress. Again the monotonous, good
day rolled in the same grooves, noiselessly, and surely, as all the days
to come were to roll along, to the end of ends. She worked for her
people, talked with Don Teodoro, talked, smiled, laughed with Gianluca,
and bore the old Duchessa's ramblings with patience and kindness.

But all of a sudden, for a nothing, at the sight of a fencing foil, at
the smell of Gianluca's cigarette, at the sound of a footfall she knew,
there came the mad wish to be alone; and she resisted it, for it did not
seem good to her, and even as she struggled the blood rose in her throat
and was in her cheeks in a moment, so that if just then by chance
Taquisara came upon her suddenly, the room swam and for an instant her
brain reeled as she turned her face from him in mortal shame.

She knew so well that he loved her, and that he was suffering, too. It
was love's hands that had chiselled the bronze of his face to leaner
lines, and that threw a new darkness into his dark eyes. It was for her
that there was that other note in his voice that had never been there
before. It was for love of her that once or twice, when she took his
hand in greeting, it was icy cold--not like Gianluca's, half dead, and
dull, and chilly, and very thin--but cold from the heart, as it were,
and more wildly living than if it had burned like fire; trembling, and
not in weakness, with something that caught her own fingers and ran like
lightning to the very core and quick of her soul, hurting it overmuch
with its bolt of joy and fear. It was for her that, at the first, he had
been cold and silent, because he was afraid of himself, and of love, and
of the least, faintest breath that might tarnish the bright shield of
his spotless loyalty to Gianluca.

All the little changes in his speech and manner were clear to her now,
and each had its meaning, and all meant the same. His words, spoken from
time to time, came back to her, and she understood them, and saw how,
for his friend's sake, he had held his peace for himself, and had ever
urged her to marry Gianluca, in spite of everything.

If he had not loved her, or if she had thought that he di