st exacting, the most adaptable, of guests!

Richard took her outstretched hand for the briefest period compatible
with courtesy. And a momentary spasm--so she fancied--contracted his
face.

"You are very welcome, Helen," he said. "If it is warm let us breakfast
in the pavilion to-morrow. Twelve--does that suit you? Good-night."

Upon the inlaid writing-table in the anteroom, Helen found a long and
impassioned epistle from Paul Destournelle. Perusal of it did not
minister to peaceful sleep. In the small hours she left her bed, threw
a silk dressing-gown about her, drew aside the heavy, blue-purple,
window curtain and looked out. The sky was clear and starlit. Naples,
with its curving lines of innumerable lights, lay outstretched below.
In the southeast, midway between the two, a blood-red fire marked the
summit of Vesuvius. While in the dimly seen garden immediately
beneath--the paved alleys of which showed curiously pale, asserting
themselves against the darkness of the flower borders, and otherwise
impenetrable shadows of the ilex and cypress grove--a living creature
moved, black, slow of pace, strange of shape. At first Helen took it
for some strayed animal. It alarmed her, exciting her to wildest
conjectures as to its nature and purpose, wandering in the grounds of
the villa thus. Then, as it passed beyond the dusky shade of the trees,
she recognised it. Richard Calmady shuffled forward haltingly, to the
terminal wall of the garden, leaned his arms on it, looking down at the
beautiful and vicious city and out into the night.

Helen de Vallorbes shivered--the marble floor striking up chill, for
all the thickness of the carpet, to her bare feet. Her eyes were hard
with excitement and her breath came very quick. Suddenly, yielding to
an impulse of superstitious terror, she dragged the curtains together,
shutting out that very pitiful sight, and, turning, fled across the
room and buried herself, breathless and trembling, between the sheets
of the soft, warm, faintly fragrant bed.

"He is horrible," she said aloud, "horrible! And it has come to me at
last. It has come--I love--I love!"

CHAPTER IV

"MATER ADMIRABILIS"

"There, there, my good soul, don't blubber. Hysterics won't restore
Lady Calmady to health, or bring Sir Richard back to England, home, and
duty, or be a ha'porth of profit to yourself or any other created
being. Keep your tears for the first funeral. For I tell you plainly I
shan't be su