oy, and yet, I know, if a danger came to
me, or a trouble, I could lean on you and you would never fail me. That's
what a woman loves to feel when she has given herself to a man, that he
knows how to take care of her, and that he cares to take care of her."

Her body was touching his. He felt himself stiffen. The mental pain he
suffered under the lash of her words affected his body, and his knowledge
of the necessity to hide all that was in his mind caused his body to long
for isolation, to shrink from any contact with another.

"I hope," he said, trying to make his voice natural and simple----"I hope
you'll never be in trouble or in danger, Hermione."

"I don't think I could mind very much if you were there, if I could just
touch your hand."

"Here they come!" he said. "I hope Artois isn't very tired with the ride.
We ought to have had Sebastiano here to play the 'Pastorale' for him."

"Ah! Sebastiano!" said Hermione. "He's playing it for some one else in
the Lipari Islands. Poor Lucrezia! Maurice, I love Sicily and all things
Sicilian. You know how much! But--but I'm glad you've got some drops of
English blood in your veins. I'm glad you aren't all Sicilian."

"Come," he said. "Let us go to the arch and meet him."

XIX

"So this is your Garden of Paradise?" Artois said.

He got off his donkey slowly at the archway, and stood for a moment,
after shaking them both by the hand, looking at the narrow terrace,
bathed in sunshine despite the shelter of the awning, at the columns, at
the towering rocks which dominated the grove of oak-trees, and at the
low, white-walled cottage.

"The garden from which you came to save my life," he added.

He turned to Maurice.

"I am grateful and I am ashamed," he said. "I was not your friend,
monsieur, but you have treated me with more than friendship. I thank you
in words now, but my hope is that some day I shall be given the
opportunity to thank you with an act."

He held out his hand again to Maurice. There had been a certain formality
in his speech, but there was a warmth in his manner that was not formal.
As Maurice held his hand the eyes of the two men met, and each took swift
note of the change in the other.

Artois's appearance was softened by his illness. In health he looked
authoritative, leonine, very sure of himself, piercingly observant,
sometimes melancholy, but not anxious. His manner, never blustering or
offensive, was usually dominating, the manner of o