ry
hard with me then, Richard. It has gone very hard with me ever since."

Madame de Vallorbes' words died away in a grave and delicate whisper.
But she did not turn her head, nor did Richard speak. Only, close there
beside her, she heard him breathe, panting short and quick even as a
dog pants, while a certain vibration seemed to run along the rough
ironwork against which she leaned. And by these signs Helen judged her
speech, though unanswered, had not been wholly in vain. From below, the
luscious fragrance of the garden, the chime of falling water, and the
urgent voice of the painted pleasure-city came up about her. Night had
veiled the face of Naples, even as Helen's own. Yet lines of
innumerable lights described the suave curve of the bay, climbed the
heights of Posilipo, were doubled in the oily waters of the harbour,
spread abroad alluring gaiety in the wide piazzas, and shone like
watchful and soliciting eyes from out the darkness of narrow street,
steep lane, and cutthroat alley. While, above all that, high uplifted
against the opacity of the starless sky, a blood-red beacon burned on
the summit of Vesuvius, the sombre glow of it reflected upon the
underside of the masses of downward-rolling smoke as upon the belly of
some slow-crawling, monstrous serpent.

Suddenly Helen spoke once again, and with apparent inconsequence.

"Richard, you must have known she could never satisfy you--why did you
try to marry Constance Quayle?"

"To escape."

"From whom--from me?"

"From myself, which is much the same thing as saying from you, I
suppose."

"And you could not escape?"

"So it seems."

"But--but, dear Richard," she said plaintively, yet with very winning
sweetness, "why, after all, should you want so desperately to escape?"

Richard moved a little farther from her.

"I have already explained that to you, to the point of insult, so you
tell me," he said. "Surely it is unnecessary to go over the ground
again?"

"You carry your idealism to the verge of slight absurdity," she
answered. "Oh! you of altogether too little faith, how should you gauge
the full flavour of the fruit till you have set your teeth in it?
Better, far better, be a sacramentalist like me and embrace the idea
through the act, than refuse the act in dread of imperiling the
dominion of the idea. You put the cart before the horse with a
vengeance, Dickie! There's such a thing as being so reverently-minded
towards your god that he ceases