to be the very least profit or use to
you."

And again she heard that panting breath beside her. Again laughter
bubbled up in her fair throat, and her hands fell to weaving the soft,
outer darkness.

"You must perceive that it cannot end here and thus," she said
presently.

"Of course not," he answered. Then, after a moment's pause, he added
coldly enough:--"I foresaw that, so I gave orders yesterday that the
yacht was not to be laid up, but only to coal and provision, and
undergo some imperatively necessary repairs. She should be ready for
sea by the end of the week."

Helen turned sideways, and the bland light, from the room within,
touched her face now as well as her kneeling figure.

"And then, and then?" she demanded, almost violently.

"Then I shall go," Richard replied. "Where, I do not yet know, but as
far, anyhow, as the coal in the yacht's bunkers will drive her.
Distance is more important than locality just now. And I leave you here
at the villa, Helen. Do not regret that you came. I don't."

He too had turned to the light, which revealed his face ravaged and
aged by stress of emotion, revealed too the homelessness, as of empty
space, resident in his eyes.

"I shall be glad to remember the place pleases and speaks to you. It
has been rather a haven of rest to me during these last two years. You
would have had it at my death, in any case. You have it a little
sooner--that's all."

But Helen held out her arms.

"The villa, the villa," she cried, "what do I want with that! God in
heaven, are you utterly devoid of all sensibility, all heart? Or are
you afraid--afraid even yet, oh, very chicken-livered lover--that
behind the beauty of Naples you may find the filth? It is not so,
Dickie. It is not so, I tell you.--Look at me. What would you have
more? Surely, for any man, my love is good enough!"

And then hurriedly, with a rustling of silken skirts, hot with anger
from head to heel, she sprang to her feet.

Across the room one of the men-servants advanced.

"The carriage is at the door, sir," he said.

And Madame de Vallorbes' voice broke in with a singular lightness and
nonchalance:--

"Surely it is rather imprudent to go out again to-night? You told me,
at dinner, you were not well, that you had had a touch of fever."

She held out her hand, smiling serenely.

"Be advised," she said--"avoid malaria. I shall see you before I go
to-morrow? Yes--an afternoon train, I think. Good-night, we mee