n odd expression come into his face. He looked over at the
water, then at her, with a curious dawning significance, that would
almost have been impudent if it had not been immensely young and full of
a kind of gnomish sympathy.

"I'll go to bed, signora!" he said.

Then he looked at her again and there were doubt and wonder in his eyes.

She turned away, with a sickness at her heart. She knew exactly what he
had thought, was thinking. The suspicion had crossed his mind that
she knew why the hidden boat was there, that she wished no one else to
suspect why it was there. And then had followed the thought, "Ma--per
questa signora--non e possibile."

At certain crises of feeling, a tiny incident will often determine some
vital act. So it was now. The fleeting glance in a carelessly expressive
boy's eyes at this moment gave to Lady Holme's mind the last touch it
needed to acquire the impetus which would carry it over the edge of the
precipice into the abyss. The look in Paolo's eyes said to her, "Life
has done with you. Throw it away." And she knew that though she had
thought she had already decided to throw it away that night, she had
really not decided. Secretly she had been hesitating. Now there was no
more hesitation in her. She drank her coffee and had the cup taken away,
and ordered the lights in the drawing-room to be put out.

"When I come in I shall go straight up to bed," she said. "Leave me a
candle in the hall."

The lights went out behind the windows. Blank darkness replaced the
yellow gleam that had shone upon them. The two houses on either side of
the piazza were wrapped in silence. Presently there was a soft noise of
feet crossing the pavement. It was Paolo going to lock the door leading
to the boathouse. Lady Holme moved round sharply in her chair to watch
him. He bent down. With a swift turn of his brown wrists he secured the
door and pulled the key out of the lock. She opened her lips to call out
something to him, but when she saw him look at the key doubtfully, then
towards her, she said nothing. And he put it back into the keyhole. When
he did that she sighed. Perhaps a doubt had again come into his young
mind. But, if so, it had come too late. He slipped away smiling, half
ironically, to himself.

Lady Holme sat still. She had wrapped a white cloth cloak round her.
She put up her hand to the disfigured side of her face, and touched it,
trying to see its disfigurement as the blind see, by feeling.