side on the old Panhard? Surely you must have known that?
Surely you must have guessed the reason why I always preferred you in
the front seat?"

"Yes--yes!" she faltered, interrupting me. "I know. I loved you, but I
was foolish--very foolish."

"Why foolish?"

She made no reply, but burst suddenly into tears.

Tenderly I placed my arm about her waist. What could I do, save to try
and comfort her? In the three years that had passed she had grown into
womanhood, and yet she still preserved that sweet girlishness that, in
these go-ahead days, is so refreshing and attractive in a woman in her
early twenties.

In those calm moments in the glorious Sicilian sundown I recollected
those days when at seventeen she had admitted her love for me, and we
were happy. Visions of that blissful past arose before me--and then the
crushing blow I had received prior to our parting.

"Vivi, tell me," I whispered at last, "why do you still hold aloof from
me?"

"Because I--I must."

"But why? You surely are now your own mistress?"

Her eyes were fixed upon me again very gravely for some moments in
silence. Then she answered in a low voice--

"But I can never marry you. It is impossible."

"No, I know. There is such a wide difference in our stations," I said
regretfully.

"No, it is not that. The reason is one that is my own secret," was her
answer, as she drew her breath and her little hands clenched themselves.

"May I not know it?"

"No--never. It--well, it concerns myself alone."

"But you still love me, Vivi? You still think of me?" I cried.

"Occasionally."

And then she turned away in the direction of the hotel.

I followed, and grasping her by the hand, repeated my question.

"My secret is my own," was all the satisfaction she would give me.

And I was forced at last to allow her to walk back to the hotel, and to
follow her alone.

What was the nature of her secret?

If ever a man's heart sank to the depths of despair mine sank at that
moment. She had been all the world to me, and, cosmopolitan adventurer
that I had now become, I met a thousand bright-eyed _chic_ and
attractive women, yet I revered her memory as the one woman who was pure
and perfect.

I watched her disappear into the green-carpeted hotel-lounge, where an
orchestra of mandolinists were playing an air from _La Boheme_. Then I
turned away, full of my own sad thoughts, and strolled in the falling
twilight beside the grey sea.

Just befor