ourselves deluded." He went up to her and caught her hands entreatingly.
"Fulvia," he said, "I too have doubted, wavered--and if you will give me
one honest reason that is worthy of us both--"

She broke from him to hide her weeping. "Reasons! reasons!" she
stammered. "What does the heart know of reasons? I ask a favour--the
first I ever asked of you--and you answer it by haggling with me for
reasons!"

Something in her voice and gesture was like a lightning-flash over a
dark landscape. In an instant he saw the pit at his feet.

"Some one has been with you. Those words were not yours," he cried.

She rallied instantly. "That is a pretext for not heeding them!" she
returned.

The lightning glared again. He stepped close and faced her.

"The Duchess has been here," he said.

She dropped into a chair and hid her face from him. A wave of anger
mounted from his heart, choking back his words and filling his brain
with its fumes. But as it subsided he felt himself suddenly cool, firm,
attempered. There could be no wavering, no self-questioning now.

"When did this happen?" he asked.

She shook her head despairingly.

"Fulvia," he said, "if you will not speak I will speak for you. I can
guess what arguments were used--what threats, even. Were there threats?"
burst from him in a fresh leap of anger.

She raised her head slowly. "Threats would not have mattered," she said.

"But your fears were played on--your fears for my safety?--Fulvia,
answer me!" he insisted.

She rose suddenly and laid her arms about his shoulders, with a gesture
half-tender, half-maternal.

"Oh," she said, "why will you torture me? I have borne much for our
love's sake, and would have borne this too--in silence, like the
rest--but to speak of it is to relieve it; and my strength fails me!"

He held her hands fast, keeping his eyes on hers. "No," he said, "for
your strength never failed you when there was any call on it; and our
whole past calls on it now. Rouse yourself, Fulvia: look life in the
face! You were told there might be troubles tomorrow--that I was in
danger, perhaps?"

"There was worse--there was worse," she shuddered.

"Worse?"

"The blame was laid on me--the responsibility. Your love for me, my
power over you, were accused. The people hate me--they hate you for
loving me! Oh, I have destroyed you!" she cried.

Odo felt a slow cold strength pouring into all his veins. It was as
though his enemies, in thinking to mix a m