was shown to the room which he
was to occupy, and proceeded to get his things in order. From his
shirt-box, which, with his valise, had already been brought upstairs, he
took the ring, the brooch, the pin, and placed them on the mantel. Then
he found other garments, and began to dress. In five minutes he was in
readiness, but as yet he heard nothing indicative of Viola's return. He
went to the window and looked out. Above the trees, in an adjacent
property, there loomed a tower. The window was at the back of the house;
he could not see the ocean, but he heard its resilient sibilants, and
from the garden came the hum of insects. It had grown quite dark, but
still there was no sign of Viola's return.

He took up the volume which he had brought with him in the cars. It was
the _Rime Nuove_ of Carducci, and with the fancies of that concettist of
modern Rome he stayed his impatience for a while. There was one octave
that had appealed to him before. He read it twice, and was about to
endeavor to repeat the lines from memory, when through the open window
he heard the clatter of horses' hoofs, the roll of wheels; it was
evident that some conveyance had stopped at the gate of the villa. Then
came the sound of hurrying feet, a murmur of voices, and abruptly the
night was cut with the anguish of a woman's cry.

Tristrem rushed from the room and down the stairs. Through the open door
beyond a trembling star was visible, and in the road a group of
undistinguished forms.

"She's only fainted," someone was saying; "she was right enough a minute
ago."

Before the sentence was completed, Tristrem was at the gate. Hatless,
with one hand ungloved and the other clutching a broken whip, the habit
rent from hem to girdle, dust-covered and dishevelled, the eyes closed,
and in the face the pallor and contraction of mortal pain, Viola Raritan
lay, waist-supported, in her mother's arms.

"Help me with her to the house," the mother moaned. Then noticing
Tristrem at her side, "She's been thrown," she added; "I knew she would
be--I knew it----"

And as Tristrem reached to aid her with the burden, the girl's eyes
opened, "It's nothing." She raised her ungloved hand, "I--" and swooned
again.

They bore her into a little sitting-room, and laid her down. Mrs.
Raritan followed, distraught with fright. In her helplessness, words
came from her unsequenced and obscure. But soon she seemed to feel the
need of action. One servant she despatched for