d herself forgetting such a love as that after two or three years,
for another man? Do you think she would respect herself more or less? Do
you think she would have the right to call herself a faithful woman?"

Orsino was silent for a moment, seeing that she meant herself by the
example. She, indeed, had only told him that her husband had been
killed, but Spicca had once said of her that she had been married to a
man who had never been her husband.

"A memory is one thing--real life is quite another," said Orsino at
last, resuming his walk.

"And to be faithful cannot possibly mean to be faithless," answered
Maria Consuelo in a low voice.

She rose and went to one of the windows. She must have wished to hide
her face, for the outer blinds and the glass casement were both shut and
she could see nothing but the green light that struck the painted wood.
Orsino went to her side.

"Shall I open the window?" he asked in a constrained voice.

"No--not yet. I thought I could see out."

Still she stood where she was, her face almost touching the pane, one
small white hand resting upon the glass, the fingers moving restlessly.

"You meant yourself, just now," said Orsino softly.

She neither spoke nor moved, but her face grew pale. Then he fancied
that there was a hardly perceptible movement of her head, the merest
shade of an inclination. He leaned a little towards her, resting against
the marble sill of the window.

"And you meant something more--" he began to say. Then he stopped short.

His heart was beating hard and the hot blood throbbed in his temples,
his lips closed tightly and his breathing was audible.

Maria Consuelo turned her head, glanced at him quickly and instantly
looked back at the smooth glass before her and at the green light on the
shutters without. He was scarcely conscious that she had moved. In love,
as in a storm at sea, matters grow very grave in a few moments.

"You meant that you might still--" Again he stopped. The words would not
come.

He fancied that she would not speak. She could not, any more than she
could have left his side at that moment. The air was very sultry even in
the cool, closed room. The green light on the shutters darkened
suddenly. Then a far distant peal of thunder rolled its echoes slowly
over the city. Still neither moved from the window.

"If you could--" Orsino's voice was low and soft, but there was
something strangely overwrought in the nervous quality of it