Those impecunious painters who haunt the open-air restaurants at Monte Carlo, on the chance of selling a five-minute portrait, had buzzed round her like bees round a honey-pot, but they were not the only ones. Two artists of some renown had got themselves introduced through acquaintances the Casino had given her, and begged her to sit to them. Also it was true, as gossip said, that the artist she had met in the train had arrived, and hastened to renew the acquaintance. He had painted her portrait. She had paid for it and—burnt it. She, the quiet schoolgirl, the earnest postulant, the novice who had never thought of her own face, who for a year had not seen it in a mirror or missed the sight of it, knew herself now for a beauty, a charming figure of importance in this strange, concrete little world where Hercules entertained his guests. And then, to be despised by the one person who occupied her thoughts, despised and thrust away at the very moment when he confessed to loving her! It was a blow to the woman's pride which had not consciously stooped to unworthiness, and a still sharper hurt to her new vanity.

She wanted to show Vanno, if he still thought of her, that others burned incense to her beauty, though he had not placed her on an altar. The discomforts of the Villa Bella Vista mattered little to the girl who had gone through a hard novitiate in a Scotch convent. She made her own bed and dusted her room. She did not care what she ate; and she tried to throw her whole heart into the life of the household, that amazing household which was unlike anything she could have imagined out of a disordered dream.

Always after coming to the Dauntreys' she continued to lose at the Casino, often large sums, occasionally picking up a little, as if luck hovered near, awaiting its cue to return, only to be frightened away again. But after a few days' time, in which more than two hundred thousand francs slipped through her fingers, Lady Dauntrey suggested that Miss Grant should "rest" for a while, meantime letting Dauntrey play his system for her benefit and with her capital. This idea did not amuse Mary.

The "gambler's blood," of which she had been warned by her father, warmed to the excitement of the game. She craved this excitement, and felt lost without it, now that the interest of Prince Vanno's distant presence in her life was gone. Still, she could not bring herself to refuse an offer which seemed meant in kindness. She gave Lord Dauntrey one thousand louis, the smallest capital, he explained, necessary to exploit his system with five-franc pieces at roulette. He assured her that with pleasure he would add this money to the same sum of his own, and play for her as well as himself, the syndicate he had originally formed being now dissolved. Dodo hinted that operations had been stopped because the whole capital was lost, but Lord Dauntrey had already mentioned to Mary that a few slight reverses had frightened the "shareholders." This cowardice, he said, had so disgusted him that he had given back the capital to each one intact, and politely refused to play any longer for the syndicate. A position of such responsibility was only possible if he were upheld by the confidence of all concerned. Otherwise, he preferred to gamble only for himself, or for a personal friend or two who trusted him.

Each night, after Mary placed her thousand louis in his hands, Lord Dauntrey gave her five hundred francs. This was as high a percentage, he made clear to her, as could be got out of the capital except at a risk of heavy losses, and he "did not care to run big risks for a woman." On a thousand louis, Lord Dauntrey explained, five hundred francs profit nightly represented 900 per cent. a year, which was of course enormous; and regarded thus, her risk was an investment, not a speculation.

When some of Lady Dauntrey's bright particular stars left her firmament (as they did leave occasionally with the quick flight of comets) she hastened to fill the vacancies with any small luminaries available. The Villa Bella Vista remained full, even when Mrs. Ernstein went suddenly to Cannes, where "villa life" might be considered even more aristocratic than at "Monte"; and Dom Ferdinand took himself and his ally out of danger's way when Dodo refused to understand that only flirtation, not marriage, was possible with a "commoner." The price of Dauntrey hospitality had, however, fallen. Those who could be attracted by the bait of their barren title had now to be looked for low in the social scale: and it was difficult to get eligible partis with whom to dazzle heiresses. The slender Austrian count, whom Dodo scornfully pronounced a "don't count," vanished mysteriously soon after Mary's arrival. He did not even say goodbye; and Dodo, who vowed that she had often heard him groaning behind the thin partition which divided her room from his, went whispering about the house that he had committed suicide in the Casino gardens.

"Why not?" she argued almost convulsively, when Mary protested that surely such a dreadful thing could not have been kept secret. "Would the Dauntreys tell, if they knew? No, of course they'd hush it up, and get rid of anything he'd left—in one way or another. Not that there was much to get rid of, for the Mont de Piete was a kind of home from home for the Count. He used to run back and forth between there and the Casino, like a distracted rabbit: pawn his watch; play with the money; win; race back and get his watch; lose again; and so on a dozen times a day, till he was stripped of jewellery down to his studs and collar buttons. It all came from his obstinacy in believing that the croupiers at trente et quarante were signalling to him whether it was going to be inverse or couleur, when they were really only licking their thumbs to deal the cards better! I say, if you must have a fetish, have a reasonable one, like playing for neighbours of zero at roulette. But that silly boy thought himself too smart for roulette, and he wouldn't take any advice, so this is what comes of it. I feel in my bones that his are in the suicide's cemetery this minute. Has nobody told you that there are no inquests of coroners here in this principality? And a jolly good thing, too! Why make the rest of us gloomy by putting nasty details in the papers, when we've come here to enjoy ourselves? They don't ask people to gamble, they merely make it nice for 'em if they're determined to, and anyhow it's honest gambling. They don't want you to play if you can't afford it and are going to be an idiot, because they hate rows and scandal. It's all for our benefit! If a man's cad enough to blow his brains out at the tables, all over a lady's dress, he is whisked away so quick nobody has time to realize what's up before a glass door in the wall has opened with a spring and shut again as if nothing had happened. Not a croupier stops spinning. I call it magnificent. But it does make you feel a bit creepy when anybody you've known disappears into space!"

Lord Burden, the dilapidated earl imported as a parti, was of opinion that the Austrian count had merely applied for the viatique; and being granted by the management a sum large enough to pay his fare and his food, had departed without caring to show his face again at the villa. Others were inclined to agree with Dodo, especially the women, who were of the type that secretly enjoys mystery and horror, when unconnected with themselves. No one ever really knew, however (unless perhaps the Dauntreys), what had become of the youth with hair en brosse, and wasp waist so slim that the body seemed held together by a mere ligament. He was gone: that was all, and his small place in the household was more than filled by a German couple, an ex-officer with an adoring wife, both of whom spent half their days in bed, testing on a roulette watch various exciting systems which, now they had come from afar off, they lacked courage to play at the Casino. Their name was so intricate that Dodo Wardropp said it ought to be kept a secret. As nobody could pronounce it, however, it amounted to that, in the end.

They did not stay long; and indeed, after the disappearance of the Austrian count, a microbe pricking people to departure seemed to multiply in the Villa Bella Vista. The sailor went suddenly, on receipt of a letter from the Admiralty, that prying institution having learned and disapproved of the way in which he was spending his leave and his pay. Lord Burden followed Mrs. Ernstein to Cannes; and Dodo, who never ceased to want good value for her money, was bitterly dissatisfied with the unmarried men who remained.

The principal one had at first attracted not only Dodo but every other woman, with the exception of Mary. He spoke English well, yet appeared to be equally at home in all socially useful languages. He looked like a Russian, dressed like a Frenchman, claimed to have estates in Italy, copper mines in Spain, a shooting in Hungary, and told delightful anecdotes of his intimate friendship with most existing sovereigns. Not a king or queen of any standing but—according to him—came often to his "little place" in this country or that, and addressed him as "Dear Alfred." His manner, his voice, were so smooth that they oiled the creaking wheels of life at the villa; and his stories, told at the table, distracted guests' attention from the skeleton at the feast—a premature skeleton of a once muscular chicken, or a lamb that had seen its second childhood. Unfortunately, however, a journalist who knew everybody and everything in the world was brought in to luncheon by Lord Dauntrey one day, and recognized the favourite of the household as a famous Parisian furrier. He had supplied enough sable coat linings for kings and ermine cloaks for queens to give him food for a lifetime of authentic anecdotes. His acquaintance with royalties was genuine of its kind, but it was not of a kind that appealed to the paying guests at Lady Dauntrey's. Dodo turned a cold shoulder upon him, and for a day or two gave her attention to the only other man in the house who pluckily advertised himself as unmarried. He advertised himself also as a millionaire, and not without reason, though Lord Dauntrey had cleverly picked him up in the Casino. When he mentioned, however, that he was a Sydney man, Miss Wardropp ceased to talk at him across the table. This change of tactics her enemies attributed to fear that he "knew all about her at home." But she told Mary that he had such slept-on looking ears, he took away her appetite; and one needed all the appetite one could muster to worry through a meal at the Bella Vista. Besides, she believed that he had made his fortune by some awful stuff which kept hair from decaying or teeth from falling off, and it did one no good to be seen in the Casino with a creature like that. It was almost better to go about with a woman, though she did hate being reduced to walking with a female; it made a girl look so unsuccessful.

At length Dodo decided that, even for Mary's sake, she could no longer "stick it out" at the Bella Vista. She felt, she said, so wretched that she was "quite off her bonbons." The crisis came at luncheon and indirectly through the marmoset. Dodo paid well and regularly; therefore she was tacitly allowed certain privileges, not always approved by her fellow-guests. Diablette had been a standing cause of friction between Lady Dauntrey and the dog's mistress; but the marmoset, its successful rival in Dodo's affections, was grudgingly permitted whenever Lord Dauntrey had borrowed fifty francs or so, to select its own fruit from the dessert. Some people were even amused at seeing the tiny animal jump from Dodo's lap on to the table, and pick out the best grapes in an old-fashioned centre-piece. On the last fatal day, however, Lady Dauntrey's nerves had been rasped by the loss of her fifth cook. When the marmoset was taken suddenly and desperately ill in the bread plate, Eve flew into a rage, and high words passed like rapier flashes between her and Miss Wardropp. Dodo attributed her pet's seizure to the fact that Dauntrey fruit was unfit even for a monkey's consumption, and Eve informed the whole company that Dodo was a disgusting Australian pig. This was the last insult. Dodo shrilly "gave notice," while the marmoset was dying in her napkin. The meal ended in confusion; and Miss Wardropp went away that afternoon with the living Diablette, the dead monkey, two teddy bears, an umbrella-mosquito-net, and seven trunks.

"Ask that man for your money back!" she advised Mary on the doorstep. "I don't say go to her, for she'd only tell you some lie. 'Lie and let lie' is her motto. She's reduced lying to a fine art. But ask him for your capital, my dear, and watch his face when you do it. Compared to his wife he's a model, even if it's a model of all the vices."

Mary missed Dodo. Diablette had been an invincible and dangerous enemy to the blue frog from the Mentone china shop, poor, blase Hilda, who spent most of her time choking in flies a size too large for her, or trying helplessly to push them down her blue throat with a tiny turquoise hand. Dodo, however, had been a ray of brightness in the house: meretricious, garish brightness perhaps; still she had given a tinselline sparkle to the dull rooms when things were at their worst, and Lady Dauntrey clouded with sullen gloom.

When the newest and humblest guests of the Villa Bella Vista lost money beyond a certain limit, the bare thought of the Casino gave them mental indigestion. They then stayed safely at home, and infested the unaired drawing-room—pale people reading pink papers, and talking "system"; or flushed people playing bridge for small points, with the windows hermetically closed and their backs to the sunset. They quarrelled among themselves in a liverish way over cards and politics, and agreed only on the subject of such titled acquaintances as they had in common, all of whom seemed to be perfectly charming. But these heraldic conversations bored Mary even more intensely than the squabbles. There came a time when desperation got the upper hand of that prudence so earnestly recommended by Lord Dauntrey. She could not endure the long evenings in the villa, and felt that she must again tempt fortune at the Casino.

One night after dinner she broke to her host the news that she need no longer trouble him to win money for her. She would take back her own half of the capital he was using, and play the old game once more.

"If I have a few days' luck, I think the wisest thing to do next would be to go away," she went on, forcing herself to laugh quite gayly, as if there were nobody at Monte Carlo whom it would hurt her cruelly never to see again. "I've stayed on and on, when all the time I ought to have been somewhere else. And I've never had courage to write my—my friends at home what I've been doing. Just one more 'flutter,' and then—goodbye!"

Her thoughts flew afar, as she made this little set speech. She saw Vanno as he had looked that day, and on other days when she had deliberately cut him in the street, or in the Casino, though she knew he had been waiting in the hope that she would relent and let him speak. His eyes haunted her everywhere. It seemed to her that they were very sad, and had lost that burning, vital light of the spirit which in contrast had made the personalities of other men dull as smouldering fires. Occasionally he was near her at the tables, for he played constantly now, recklessly and often disastrously according to Hannaford.

The word "goodbye" and its attendant thought of departure brought Vanno's image as clearly before Mary as if he had walked into the ugly drawing-room, where people were shuffling cards for bridge or putting on their wraps for the Casino. It was Vanno alone who was real for her, not the other figures; and she did not see the grayness that settled like a shadow on Lord Dauntrey's lined and sallow face.

"I'm awfully sorry, Miss Grant," he said, "but I can't give you back your money now, for the simple reason that I banked most of your capital and mine this afternoon. I felt rather seedy, and didn't mean to play seriously to-night. If only you'd spoken in time, it would have been all right enough. But now I'm afraid the best I can do for you, until to-morrow, will be a few hundred francs. My wife and I must see what we can scrape together."

He jumbled his words, as if in a hurry to get them all out, and laughed apologetically, staring Mary straight in the face, insistently, with his melancholy eyes. Something in them caught her attention, distracting it from the thought that was always forcing itself in front of others. She readily believed that he "felt seedy," for he looked extremely ill. There were bags under the gray eyes, and his skin seemed loose on his face, almost like a glove on a hand for which it is too large. Mary was sorry for him, and protested that after all she did not care about playing that night. She would wait till to-morrow, and he must not mind what she had said. He appeared to be slightly relieved; but though he smiled, his eyes kept the dull glassiness which gave them an unnatural effect.

Late that night Eve knocked at Mary's door. She had on a bright green dressing-gown, with a Chinese embroidery running over it of golden dragons and serpents. In her hand she carried a cheap silver-backed brush, and her long dark hair was undone. She looked strikingly handsome, but the thick black strands hanging down on either side of the white face recalled to Mary a picture in the library at Lady MacMillan's. It was a clever painting of the Medusa, level-eyed, with a red mouth like a wound, and dimly seen, pale glimmering features, between the lazy writhing of dark snakes. The thing had fascinated Mary in her impressionable schoolgirl days, but now she tried to huddle the idea quickly out of her head, for it seemed disloyal and even disgusting in connection with her hostess.

"I saw your light under the door," Lady Dauntrey said, "and I thought maybe you wouldn't mind my sitting with you for a bit. I do feel so beastly down on my luck, and you always cheer me up, you're so different from any of the others."

Mary had begun, for perhaps the twentieth time, a letter to Reverend Mother; but she was half glad of an excuse to put it away unfinished. She too was in a wrapper, with her shining hair over her shoulders, but she suggested a St. Ursula rather than a Medusa. There was no comfortable chair in the room, but she drew the only one whose legs could be depended upon, in front of a dying wood fire for Lady Dauntrey.

Eve sat for a few moments brushing her hair in a lazy, aimless way, and staring at the red logs. "Perhaps," she said at last, "I shall have to cheer you up, though, when you've heard what I've come for. Might as well out with it, I suppose! I know I can't bear having had news 'broken' to me. My husband told you he was seedy, didn't he?—and hadn't meant to play, so he'd banked all the money. He hadn't the courage, poor chap, to tell you what really happened. He's simply sick over it, so I offered to see you. In a way, it was true, what he said. The bank has got the money, only—it's the Casino bank. Dauntrey had an awful debacle to-day, the first time since he's been playing for you, and lost everything; not only your capital, of course, but his own too. It's your money he's so sick about, though. He could stand the loss of his own, though it's a blow, and I don't quite know what we shall do. But to lose yours! He's almost off his head. If it weren't for me, and my saying you'd forgive him, I believe he'd blow his brains out."

"Oh, don't speak of anything so horrible!" Mary cried. "Of course I forgive him."

"He's afraid you may think he has juggled away your money. When you asked him for it to-night he was already wondering how you'd take the loss; but your proposal coming suddenly like that bowled him over, and he made an excuse to put off the evil hour. What a weird coincidence you should have wanted your capital back the very day he'd lost the lot! He's so sorry you didn't think of it yesterday; for then it would have been safe in your hands now, unless you'd lost it yourself, which I can't help thinking, my dear, you probably would, the way things were going with you before."

"I daresay I should have lost the money if he hadn't," said Mary kindly. In her heart, she wished that she had been given the chance, as at least she would then have had some amusement, before the money was gone. And certainly it was an odd coincidence that the loss should have happened just before she had suggested playing for herself again. She could not help remembering Dodo's parting shot at the Dauntreys. She wished that the idea had not been put into her head; for though she would not believe that Lord Dauntrey had robbed her, she saw that it was a mistake to have lent him the capital—a mistake from his point of view, as well as her own. The money was gone; and even if there were something wrong in the way of its going, she could not prove the wrong. Nor did she wish to try. She wished to believe the story Lady Dauntrey had told, which might easily be true. Yet there would always remain the little crawling snake of doubt; and that was not fair to Lord Dauntrey.

"It's too, too bad, and we are both terribly upset," Eve went on heavily. "But it's the fortune of war, isn't it? And, thank goodness, you've got plenty left of what the Casino's given you, I hope, in spite of that awful Christmas night."

"Oh, yes, I've got more, in Smith's Bank," said Mary. "I can draw some out to-morrow, and begin playing again. Tell Lord Dauntrey he mustn't mind as far as I'm concerned."

"I did tell him you'd be sporting, and that you were a good plucked one, but I couldn't console him. The truth is, our part of the loss is pretty serious. The Casino didn't give us any of our capital, you know, and we aren't rich. We've lost an awful lot this season. Monte Carlo's been disastrous to us in every way."

"But I thought Lord Dauntrey had done well with his system?" Mary ventured.

"Oh, the system!" Eve caught herself up, quickly. "Yes, that was all right. Only we never made much, as he couldn't afford high stakes. But he's so good-natured and generous. He lent money to others to gamble with—I won't say who, though perhaps you can guess—and never got a penny back. And some of the people we've had staying here ran up big bills and skipped without paying them. We simply had to let them go, and make the best of it. Oh, dear Miss Grant—Mary—this is a bad time to ask a favour, I know, when my husband's just come a cropper with your money, as well as his own; but I was never one to beat about the bush. And you're a regular brick. You're in luck, and we're out—down and out! I wonder—would you be inclined to lend us—say, a thousand pounds, just to tide over the few weeks till our dividends come? We'd give you good security, of course. We have shares in South African diamond mines."

"I think I might be able to do that," said Mary, who could not bear to see Lady Dauntrey humble herself to plead.

"How good you are!" Eve exclaimed. "You're a real friend, the only one we've got. The rest are sharks, or cats. It—it won't run you down low to let us have a thousand?" She fixed her eyes sharply on Mary, under the shadow of her falling hair, which she brushed as if mechanically.

"Oh no, I'm sure I can manage it very well."

"And keep enough to go on playing with?"

"Yes. I don't quite know how much I have in the bank. I've given away a good deal here and there, I suppose, besides what I lost—and this now. But there's sure to be plenty."

"Suppose, though, you go on losing? Of course I hope you won't. But there's that to think of. Still, I presume you needn't worry if the Casino should get back every penny they've given you? I hope you have ever and ever so much of your own. I think I heard you telling the Wardropp girl—wretched little beast!—that you had a big legacy left you?"

"I believe I did tell her so, in the train," said Mary. "I don't remember speaking of it since."

"I couldn't help overhearing what you said then. You were both talking at the top of your voices. Well, I'm glad for you. If you're wise, you'll put yourself out of temptation's way, and won't keep much beyond your winnings where you can lay hands on it."

"I came here with very little," Mary confessed. "You see, I'd meant to go on to Italy."

"And you were so lucky at first, that you've lived on your winnings, and have never had to write a cheque on your own bank in England or anywhere?"

"Not one!" laughed Mary. "Since I came into my money, I haven't drawn half a dozen cheques—except in the cheque-book I got at Smith's, after Mr. Shuyler and Mr. Carleton advised me to keep my winnings there."

"You fortunate girl! And think of all the lovely jewellery you've bought, too! Of course I'm glad for our sakes, that your friends advised you to store the best things in the bank, when you're not wearing them, for one never knows about one's servants; and there are such creatures as burglars. Still, I wonder you can bear having those heavenly things out of your sight. I couldn't!"

"I've felt rather tired of my jewellery lately," said Mary. "I hardly know why. But I don't seem to take the pleasure in wearing it that I did at first, when it was new to me."

Lady Dauntrey rose from the creaky chair with a sigh, and a slight shiver. "You look too much like a saint for jewellery to suit you as well as it does other people—me for instance!" she said. "And you are a saint. I don't know how to thank you enough. My poor boy will be grateful! Well, I must go. You ought to have more wood on your fire. But I suppose it's gone. Everything always is in this house, if it's anything one wants. If ever you're in trouble of your own, and need a couple of friends to stand by you, you've got us. Let's shake on it!"

She put out her hand and drew Mary toward her. If the girl had not shrunk away almost imperceptibly, she would have bent down and kissed her.



XXI

The cure of Roquebrune learned in an odd way that his Principino was gambling; just in the queer roundabout way that secret things become public on the Riviera.

His housekeeper had a sister. That sister was the wife of a man who kept cows at Cap Martin, sold milk which the cows gave, and butter which he said that he made (gaining praise thereby), though it was really imported at night in carts from Italy.

The daughter was eighteen, and it was her duty to carry milk to the customers of her father, who did business under the name of Verando, Emilio. She was a beauty, and her fame spread until people of all classes made errands to the laiterie of Verando, Emilio, to stare at the dark-browed girl who was like a splendid Ligurian storm-cloud. When the twelve white cows of Emilio were occasionally allowed an outing, and could be seen glimmering among the ancient olive trees, the Storm-cloud walked with them; early in the morning, when the gray-blue of mountain and sky was framed like star sapphires in the silver of gnarled trunks and feathery branches; or else early in the evening, when the moon-dawn had come. The cows were supposed to chaperon Mademoiselle Nathalie Verando, who was by blood more Signorina than Mademoiselle; but they countenanced several flirtations which were observed by the caretaker of Mirasole, the villa presently to be occupied by Prince Angelo Della Robbia and his bride.

The caretaker, consumed with jealousy because one of the flirters had flirted also with her daughter, told everybody that Nathalie Verando had been kissed in the olive woods. Jim Schuyler's cook was a friend of Luciola, the cure's housekeeper. When she heard of the incident in the Verando family, she told Nathalie's aunt that Mrs. Winter, the chaplain's wife at Monte Carlo, was in need of a parlour maid. The maid must be pretty, because Mrs. Winter could not bear to have ugly people about her. They ruined her appetite. This peculiarity was known at Stellamare, because Mrs. Winter's cousin, Mr. Carleton, was visiting there. Would it not be wise to put Nathalie into service, at a distance from Cap Martin, so that everything might be forgotten?

Mrs. Winter, to whom the suggestion was made by her cook (cousin to the cook at Stellamare), snapped at it eagerly. She had been out walking with Dick, and they had both seen the beautiful dark Storm-cloud chaperoned by the white cows, among the olives.

Nathalie became femme de chambre in the apartment of Mrs. Winter. She was so charmed with her mistress, and with certain hats and blouses that Rose bestowed upon her, that she did not much miss the flirtations. But, being a good Catholic, and having been confirmed by the cure of Roquebrune, her conscience asked itself whether it could be right to live in a household not only Protestant, but the abode of a priest who spread heresy. It occurred to her that she would go and put this question to the cure, her spiritual father; and she was not deterred from her resolve by the fact that Achille Gonzales had finished his military service and returned to visit his family. Achille's father was the Maire of Roquebrune, a peasant landowner of wealth whose pride was in his son and in their Spanish ancestry, which dated back to the days of Saracen fighting on the coast.

Achille was a great match; and the white cows had nibbled mint and clover from his hands before he went away with his regiment to Algeria. His father was about to make over to him some land adjoining the cure's garden, and the young man was there planting orange trees on fine days.

Nathalie chose a fine afternoon to ask Mrs. Winter if she might go to Roquebrune.

The cure, who was broad-minded, set her heart at rest about the possible iniquity of her service. He said that different religions were all paths leading up a steep hill, in the same direction, only some were more roundabout than others. Nathalie need not after all have taken the trouble to climb the mule track in the afternoon sun; yet she was not sorry she had come. Seldom had she looked so beautiful as when her aunt was giving her orange-syrup with water after her talk with the cure, the oranges being a present to the house from Achille Gonzales. On the table in the little kitchen stood a silver photograph frame which Luciola was going to clean, as the salt air had tarnished its brightness. In the frame was a photograph of Prince Giovanni Della Robbia as a boy of eighteen; but so little had eleven years changed Vanno, that Nathalie recognized the picture at once.

"Ah," she exclaimed, "surely that is the handsome, tall young gentleman who walks over often to look at the Villa Mirasole, near our laiterie: the brother of the prince who is coming soon to live there."

"Why, yes, it is he," replied her aunt. "He is a friend of our cure's, and was once his pupil. He is the Prince Giovanni Della Robbia, a very noble, good young man."

"I am not sure he is so very good," retorted Nathalie, pleased to know something which her aunt perhaps did not know, about a person of importance.

Luciola's tiny body quivered with indignation. "Not good! How dare you say such a thing of our cure's Prince? What can you have to tell of a great noble in his position—you—a little no-one-at-all?"

The Storm-cloud lowered. "There are those as important as your Prince who do not think me a 'little no-one-at-all.' The grand folk who come to Cap Martin to call upon our lady the Empress Eugenie tell each other about me; English dukes and duchesses they are, and Spanish grandees, and high nobility from all over the world, who visit the Cap to do her reverence. They make one excuse or another to have a look at your 'little no-one-at-all.' And a famous American artist has sketched me, in the olive woods. He would not let me run home even for five minutes to change into my best dress, nor would he permit that I put away my milk cans: that was my one regret! As for your Prince, he passed, taking a short cut to the villa, while I posed. Do you think he went on without looking? No; he stopped and spoke with the artist."

"Then that was because they were acquaintances," snapped Luciola.

"It is true they knew each other. But it was not for the beaux yeux of the big red-bearded artist that the Prince stopped. It was to look at my face in the sketch-book. There were other faces there, too, and on the page next to mine the profile of a most lovely lady, all blond like an angel, whose name the Prince knew, for he and the artist talked of her, and called her Miss Grant. I have heard much conversation about her since then, at Madame Winter's, at tea-time in the afternoon when I bring in the tray and give cakes to visitors. They all, especially Madame's cousin, speak of Miss Grant, and she is celebrated for her beauty as well as for her gambling: yet your Prince looked as much at my picture as at hers, quite as much; and the artist could have taken no more pains with me if I had been a queen. So you see what other people think. And as it happens, I do know a great deal about this Prince."

"Nothing against him, then, I am sure," persisted Luciola, though somewhat impressed. "Monsieur le Cure loves him, which alone proves that he is good."

"Does Monsieur le Cure consider it good to gamble at Monte Carlo?" inquired Nathalie, with assumed meekness.

"Of course not. Prince Giovanni would not stoop to such a pursuit."

"Oh, would he not? That is all you know of the world, here on your mountain, dear aunt. Me, I hear everything that goes on, though I live in the house of a cleric. Madame's cousin knows well your Prince, who, it is true, did not gamble at first, and seemed to scorn the Casino, so I heard from Monsieur Carleton while I poured the tea. But for some reason he has taken to play, the Prince. He is always in the Casino. He has refused to live in the villa at Cap Martin with his brother and sister-in-law, who have now arrived, because he hates to be too far from the Casino, though perhaps they may not know why. Monsieur Carleton has told Madame that not once have they been inside its doors, or shown themselves at any Monte Carlo restaurant. Oh, your Prince is a wild gambler, aunt, and loses much money, which is a silly way of amusing one's self, in my opinion. And that is why I say he is not so good as you and Monsieur le Cure think him, you who are so innocent."

"I do not believe one word of your foolish gossip," was the only satisfaction Nathalie got from Luciola. But when the girl had gone, the little old woman was in such haste to retell the tale to the cure, that she did not even throw a glance at Nathalie. If she had, she might have seen the Storm-cloud brightening when, quite by accident, she was met by Achille Gonzales within a few yards of the cure's door.

Old as she was, Luciola had an excellent memory for anything that interested her, though she was capable of forgetting what was best forgotten in a household, such as the breaking of a dish, or the reason why the cat had been left out of doors all night in the rain. She repeated what she had heard from her niece, almost word for word, wandering a little sometimes from the straight path of the narrative into side tracks, such as the anecdote of the artist who took as much pains with Nathalie's portrait as with that of the great beauty, Miss Grant, who was always gambling at the Casino, the place where wicked people said that Prince Giovanni played. No exciting detail did Luciola neglect.

The cure listened to the end, without interrupting, greatly to the housekeeper's disappointment, as she had made her narrative piquant in the hope of tempting her master to ask questions. But he showed no emotion of any kind, and only remarked at last that Luciola was quite right not to believe gossip about the Prince, or indeed evil of any one.

Nevertheless her story left him reflective. He thought it not impossible that Vanno was gambling; and if it were the case, several things would be explainable. It was many days since the Prince had come to Roquebrune, although the cure had done what he did not wish to do, in order to please his one-time pupil.

Vanno was well aware that it was not the cure's affair to call upon strangers out of his own parish, except by special request. To call uninvited upon a person in Monaco might seem to the cure and abbe of San Carlo like an intrusion: and to present himself at a hotel, inquiring for a young lady whom he did not even know to be a Catholic, had been an ordeal. This, for the Principino's sake, he had done not once but twice, as Vanno knew. And in truth the Prince had seemed too preoccupied with disappointment because Miss Grant was not at home to express much gratitude when the cure told him of the two calls.

Not since the third day before Christmas had Vanno come to Roquebrune, nor had he written his old friend; and certainly the cure had wondered, for now the new year was more than a week old; and always the weather had been of that brilliance the peasant women consider necessary after Noel for the washing of the Christ child's clothes by the Sainte Vierge, His mother. There had been no such excuse as rain to prevent a visit; but at last the cure guessed at a reason which might have kept Vanno from wishing to see him.

On New Year's Day—the great fete—the priest had called in the afternoon on Prince and Princess Della Robbia, at the Villa Mirasole, knowing that their arrival had been delayed until the night before. Vanno, who had lunched with them, had already gone; and it was no news to the cure that the younger brother was not living at Cap Martin. Angelo referred to this change of plan, saying laughingly that no doubt the foolish boy feared to interrupt a tete-a-tete. Nonsense this, of course; for the honeymoon had extended itself over months, and the Princess was anxious to see as much as possible of her new brother-in-law. Angelo, too, particularly wished Vanno to love Marie as a sister, and report well of her to the Duke, whose favourite he was. It was no secret that Vanno could do what he liked with his father, although no other soul was permitted to take liberties with the Duke.

Nothing had been left unsaid which might assure Vanno of his welcome, yet he insisted on remaining at some Monte Carlo hotel, only coming over to lunch or dinner, though Angelo quite understood that his brother had promised to live with him.

The cure, soothing the elder and defending the younger gayly, thought in his heart that he knew better than Angelo why Vanno clung to Monte Carlo. He supposed Miss Grant to be the attraction, but this was the Principino's affair, and the cure kept the secret. Miss Grant's name was not mentioned. Evidently Prince and Princess Della Robbia had not heard of her.

Vanno's infatuation for the girl did not seem a light thing to the cure, and he thought of it anxiously, hoping and sometimes believing that the young man would be strong enough to hold himself aloof, unless Miss Grant should show herself worthy of a noble, not a degrading, love. The priest had kept his promise in going to see her; but until this rumour of Vanno's gambling reached him he had not been able to regret his failure. The responsibility of judging and truthfully reporting his opinion of a young woman had weighed heavily upon his spirits. Supposing the cure had said to himself that he saw Miss Grant and thought nothing but good of her? The Principino might on the strength of his report be reckless enough to propose marriage. A good and beautiful girl might still be an unsuitable match for a son of the Duke of Rienzi; and on the priest's head would, in a sense, lie the blame if she became the wife of Prince Vanno. Altogether, the cure had been inclined to think that the saints had perhaps had a hand in sending him twice to call when Miss Grant was not visible. Now, however, he took himself to task. He had been careless. He had considered his own selfish feelings too much in this matter. If the Principino had taken to gambling (a vice he had once sneered at as a refuge for the destitute in intellect) there must have been some extraordinary incentive. The cure was sure of this; and granting it without mental argument, he set himself to the task of deduction.

"One would say I flattered myself by thinking that I had been born a detective!" he remarked aloud to his favourite rose-bush, when Luciola had emptied her news-bag for him, in the garden. "Me, a detective? Heaven forbid! Yet at the same time, if I have brain-power to be of service to my Principino, the saints give me wit to use it."

Then he thought very hard, sitting in his arbour, on the wooden seat which gave a view over the whole coast, with its mountains whose feet were promontories. Half amused, half alarmed lest the pretence were sin, he tried to put himself in Vanno's place; and so doing it was borne in upon his mind that something of importance must have happened between the Prince and Miss Grant. She had been gambling all the while, though Vanno had not at first gambled: but if they had met—if there had been a scene which had driven the Prince to desperation—might that not explain the change? Had she definitely proved herself unworthy, or had Vanno openly done her some injustice, which had wrought bitterness for both? In any case, the cure decided that he had been mistaken in the designs of Providence for himself. After all, perhaps it had been meant for him to meet Miss Grant, and he had been indifferent, had turned a deaf ear to the voice which bade him try again and yet again.

He resolved to call upon the girl, not only once more, but many times if necessary, and when there was something to report, he would have an excuse to go and see Vanno.

All this, indirectly through Nathalie Verando's walks with the white cows, in the olive woods of Cap Martin, and more directly through the tarnishing of a silver frame on an old photograph.



XXII

Eve Dauntrey was in the act of opening the door as the cure of Roquebrune put out his hand to touch the bell at the Villa Bella Vista.

Somehow it was a shock to find herself face to face with a priest, on her own doorstep; and before she could quite control her nerves, she broke out with a brusque, "What do you want?"

The cure looked calmly at her, his pleasant, sunburned face betraying none of the surprise he felt at such a reception. In his modest way he was a quick and keen observer, though he had never deliberately prided himself on being a judge of character. It seemed to him that the handsome, hard-eyed woman with the white face and scarlet lips was startled at the sight of his black cassock, as if she had done something which she would not like to have a priest find out.

This made him spring to the conclusion that she had been brought up as a Catholic, but was one no longer.

"I have called upon a lady who, I am told, is staying here," he explained politely in French. "Miss Grant."

"Miss Grant?" Eve could not help showing that she was puzzled and not pleased. "Yes, Miss Grant is visiting me," she admitted. Then, with a sudden impulse which she could hardly have explained, quickly added: "Unfortunately she's out. Is there any message you would like to leave?"

As she asked this question, Lady Dauntrey stared with almost ostentatious frankness straight into the cure's face, and her voice had lost its sharpness. She was dressed in purple velvet, and wore a large purple hat. The rich dark hue gave her light eyes a very curious colour, more green than gray; and as she stood on the doorstep, tall and somehow formidable, the cure thought that she looked Egyptian, an elemental creature who might have lived by the Nile when the Sphinx was new.

The afternoon sunshine streamed into her eyes, and caused her pupils to shrink until they appeared to be no larger than black pinheads. Perhaps, the cure acknowledged to himself, it was only this that gave them a deceitful effect; nevertheless he felt suddenly sure that for some reason she was lying to him. He did not believe that Miss Grant was out.

"This lady does not wish me to meet her guest," he told himself. But aloud he said that he regretted missing Miss Grant; and there was no message, thanks, except that the cure of Roquebrune had called again. He was making up his mind to a certain course, and stood aside politely, meaning to let Lady Dauntrey pass, and then follow her down the steps of her villa. What he would do after that was his own affair; for with those who are subtle it is permitted to be subtle in return. Lady Dauntrey, however, seemed unwilling to let him linger. Instead of passing him, she asked, "Are you coming my way?"

"As you tell me, Madame, that Miss Grant is out, I will go on to the Church of Sainte Devote, which is not far away," the cure answered.

"Oh!" The slight look of strain on Lady Dauntrey's face passed, as if her muscles relaxed. "Then we go in different directions. I am walking up the hill to Monte Carlo. Good afternoon. I will remember to give Miss Grant your message."

They parted, but Lady Dauntrey turned her head twice, each time to see the cure's black-robed figure marching at a good pace away from the villa. Then she went on faster; and the importance of the incident began to fade from her mind. Not that it had ever had any real importance, she assured herself. Only, she hated priests as she would hate to see a raven fly over her head. They seemed somehow ominous; and she could not understand why a member of the interfering tribe wanted to see Miss Grant, unless to try and get her away into less worldly surroundings. Lady Dauntrey did not wish Mary to go; and she was glad she had acted on impulse, saying that the girl was out. It was lucky that she had met the priest, for had he arrived a minute sooner or a minute later, a servant would have told him that Miss Grant was in. Eve decided that she would forget to mention the cure of Roquebrune's visit.

Having said that he would go to the Church of Sainte Devote, the cure conscientiously kept his word. Luckily the Villa Bella Vista was not far from the deep, dim ravine where the patron saint of Monaco was supposed to have drifted ashore in a boat, piloted by a sacred dove, and rowed by faithful followers after suffering martyrdom in Corsica. The cure was fond of the strange little church of sweet chimes, almost hidden between immense, concealing walls of rock; but to-day he merely paid his respects to the saint and quickly went his way again. Twenty minutes after parting from Lady Dauntrey, he rang the bell of her villa, and was told by an untidy servant that Miss Grant was at home.

Mary was waiting in the house to receive Mrs. Winter, who had been persuaded by Carleton to overlook the girl's neglect, and to call once more, with him. Dick had asked Mary not to speak of the visit in advance to Lady Dauntrey, as his cousin wanted a chance for a talk, uninterrupted by the mistress of the villa; and Mary half guiltily, though with a certain pleasure, had consented. Instinctively she guessed that Eve would have taken the call for herself, and that Mrs. Winter would have found little time to chat with any one else. It was hateful to be hypercritical, Mary felt, yet she had begun to see that Lady Dauntrey was curiously jealous of her; that she did not like to see her talk with strangers, or alone even with other guests of the house.

When the cure of Roquebrune was ushered in, Mary was expecting Dick to arrive with his cousin; but for the moment she was alone in the drawing-room which she had made less depressing by a generous gift of flowers. The alertness with which the girl sprang up, on his entrance, and the quick change of expression told the cure that she was expecting another visitor. "Could it be the Prince?" was the question which darted through his mind. But, no. There was neither disappointment nor relief on her face, only surprise. He argued in consequence that the visitor was not awaited with emotion.

The servant who admitted the cure had not said that the occupant of the drawing-room was Miss Grant, but his first glance assured him of her identity. Yes, this must be the face, the eyes, which had appealed to all the romance in Vanno. Even the man whom conviction had dedicated body and soul to the religion of self-sacrifice had enough humanity mingling with his saintliness to feel the peculiar appeal of this gentle girl. She was not only a woman, she was Woman. Unconsciously she called, not to men, but to man, to all that was strong, to all that was chivalrous and desired to give protection.

There was nothing modern about the type, the cure told himself, though it might be that this particular specimen of it had been trained to modern ideas. Such a woman would never struggle for her "rights." They would be flung at her feet as tribute, before she could ask, and quite without thought she would accept them. The cure would have laughed had he been accused of lurking tendencies toward romance, except perhaps in his love of gardens; yet he seemed to reflect the impressions of Vanno, to realize with almost startling keenness the special allurement Miss Grant had for the Prince; that remoteness from the ordinary which suggested the vanished loveliness of Greece with all its poetry; which would make an accompaniment of music seem appropriate to every movement, like the leit motif for a woman in grand opera.

"She is good and sweet," he said to himself, even before he spoke. "I seem to see her surrounded by a halo of purity." And he thought that a man who loved this girl could not forget, or love another woman. He did not lose sight of Vanno's position, or belittle it, in thinking it of small consequence compared to love: but he said, "This is a girl in a million. She is worthy of the highest place." And in an undertone something else was whispering in him, "I may have but a few minutes to do what I have come for." His spirit rose to the occasion. If the certain reward had been a cardinal's hat, he could not have determined more obstinately on success; perhaps he would not have strained toward the goal with the same energy, for rightly or wrongly the cure had no temporal ambition for himself. He loved his mountain flock, and had no wish to leave it. His garden was to him what a boxful of jewels is to some women. What he had to do in the next few minutes was to secure Vanno's happiness and the girl's; for it did not occur to him as possible that she had no love for Vanno.

"I think," began Mary, "that you must be the cure of Roquebrune, and that it was you who came to see me at the hotel. It was very kind of you, and so kind to come again. I meant to have gone up to your church, but——"

"I understand," he put in when she paused, showing embarrassment. "Still, I want you to come not only to my church, but to my garden. It will do you good. It is that which I have called to ask you to do. That, and one other thing."

"One other thing?" Mary looked a little anxious. Now he would perhaps say that he had heard from the convent, that they knew where she was, and had begged him to admonish her.

"Yes, one other thing. You will think I am abrupt in mentioning it, but you see, I must speak quickly, for at any moment I may be interrupted, and the thing is of great importance—to me, because it concerns one whom I love—he who first asked me to come and see you, Prince Vanno Della Robbia."

"It was he who asked you?" The words burst from her. She had been pale; but suddenly the lilies of her face were turned to roses, as one flower may seem to be transformed into another, by the trick of an Indian fakir.

"Yes. Because I am his old friend, and he wished that you and I might also be friends. That was before he had ever spoken one word to you, or you to him; but now, I feel sure, you have met?"

Mary's flaming face paled and hardened. "What has he told you?" she asked sharply.

"Nothing. I have not seen him for many days. But because I have not, and because of what I hear of him, I think you have met. I think, too, that perhaps you both made some mistakes about each other. I will not even beg you not to consider me impertinent or intrusive. It would insult your intelligence and your heart. I ask you, my child, to tell me whether or no I have guessed right?"

"He made mistakes about me," she replied, almost sullenly. "I don't see how it's possible that I have made any about him."

"It is not only possible but certain if you believe him capable of wronging you in thought or act. I know him. And I heard him speak of you. Any woman might thank heaven for inspiring such words from a man. I tell you this, I who am a priest: He loves you, and did love you from the moment he first set eyes upon your face."

"I know," Mary answered simply, and with something of the humbleness of a child rebuked by high authority. "He said that to me. But—no, I can't tell you any more."

"That 'but' has told me everything. You sent him away?"

"Yes."

"And I know him well enough to be sure that he has tried to see you again, to justify himself?"

"He has written. I sent back the letter. And he has wanted to speak, but I have never let him. I thought it would be wrong."

"Then, my poor child, did you think it less wrong to send him to his ruin?"

"To his ruin—I?"

"Because you believed him evil, you have roused evil in him, and driven him to evil. I wish to read you no moral lecture on gambling; but for him, for a man of his nature, it is a dangerous and powerful drug if taken to kill pain. I have come to ask you to save him, since I believe only you can do it."

"I?" she echoed, bitterly. "But I am a gambler! There's gambler's blood in my veins. I was warned, and wouldn't listen. Now I know there's no use struggling, so I go on. How can I save any one from a thing I do myself—a thing I feel I shall keep on doing?"

"Because he loves you, you can save him; and because you love him, too."

She threw her head back, with the gesture of a fawn in flight. "Why should you say that?"

"I say what I know. I read your heart. And it is right that you should love him."

"No! For he insulted me."

"You thought so. It was a deceiving thought. Let him prove it false. Come to my garden to-morrow, and I will bring him to you there. I would not say this unless I were sure of him. And I tell you again, his salvation is in you. You have driven him to the drug of forgetfulness. You owe it to his soul to give him justice. For the rest, let him plead."

"Madame Veentaire and Meestaire Carleton," announced the shabby man-servant, blundering abruptly in, as if the door had broken away in front of him.

The fire died out of the priest's face, but there was no sense of defeat in his eyes. His calm after excitement was communicated subtly to Mary, and enabled her to greet her new guests without confusion.

The cure bowed with old-fashioned politeness, and with a slight fluttering of the voice Mary made him known to the chaplain's wife and Dick Carleton.

"But we know each other already, Monsieur le Cure and I," exclaimed Rose, putting out her hand. She explained this to Mary with her bright, enthusiastic smile. "My husband and I take long walks together. One of our first was up to Roquebrune; and we went into the church—such a huge, important church for a little hill town! Monsieur le Cure was there, and we talked, and he showed us the picture under a curtain. How I do love pictures under curtains, don't you? They're so beautifully mysterious. And through a door there was a glimpse of fairyland. I couldn't believe it was real—I hardly believe so now, though Monsieur le Cure waved his wand and made us free of the place, as if it were a 'truly' garden. Have you been there yet, Miss Grant?"

"I was just inviting her to come for the first time, to-morrow," said the cure. "Advise her to accept, Madame, for three o'clock."

"Indeed I do!" Rose smiled from him to Mary.

The cure moved forward, holding out his hand. He made it evident that this was goodbye. "Will you not take Madame's advice, and my invitation?" he asked, his good brown eyes warm and gentle.

"Yes!" Mary answered impulsively, laying her hand in his.

He clasped it, looking kindly into her face. "I am very glad. Thank you. I will meet you in the church," he said; no more; but Mary knew that he meant, "Thank you for trusting me."

* * * * * * *

"His Highness is out," was the answer at the Hotel de Paris to the cure's inquiries. No, the Prince had left no word as to when he would come in. Often he was away for dinner, and sometimes did not return until late at night.

"Eh bien! I will wait," said the cure with a sigh. He had determined to carry the thing through, and would not fail for lack of persistence.

Vanno might be in any one of a dozen places, but the cure with his mind's eye saw the young man at the Casino. There he could not seek him even if he would, as a man in clerical dress would not be admitted. Resignedly the priest sat down in a retired corner of the hall, where he could watch those who came in by the revolving door. That he should be sitting in this home of gayety and fashion at Monte Carlo appealed to his sense of humour. "A bull in a china shop," he thought, "is in his element compared to poor Father Pietro Coromaldi in the hall of the Hotel de Paris."

At first he was half shyly diverted by the gay pageant around him, the coming and going of perfectly dressed men and women of many nations, who drank tea and ate little cakes, while the band played the sort of music which can have no mission save as an incentive to conversation.

But time went on, and Vanno did not come. The cure tired of the people, most of whom he felt inclined to pity, as no real joy shone out of their eyes, even when they laughed. He thought the pretty, smiling young women were like attractive advertisements for tooth-pastes, and face-powders, and furs, and hats. They did not look to him like real people, living real, everyday lives; and Miss Grant, though perhaps she led just such an existence, seemed to belong to a different order of being.

At last Lady Dauntrey, in her smart purple dress, came in with a tall, haggard man who had the eyes of a chained and starving dog. They joined a conspicuous party whose principal members were a fat woman massaged to the teeth, a dark girl who had evidently a sharp eye to the main chance as well as to the picturesque, and a hook-nosed, appallingly pompous man who would strut on the edge of the grave.

"Those are the Holbeins," said a woman, who at that moment came with another to a seat near the cure's inconspicuous corner. "They represent the ideal vulgarity. Rich beyond the dreams of reasonable avarice! When the mother and father die, the girl's last tribute to their memory will be to order them bijou tombstones. And they are the sort of people those wretched Dauntreys are driven to know!"

The cure, catching a name made familiar to him earlier in the day, turned his head to glance at his neighbours, who were seating themselves at a small round table. At the same time one of the two women, the one who had not spoken, looked at him. Instant recognition flashed in the eyes of both. The lady bowed with distant politeness, and he returned the courtesy. She it was who had come to him at Roquebrune, one day weeks ago, asking for news of Prince Della Robbia, of whose acquaintance with him she was evidently informed.

She was dressed more elaborately this afternoon. The cure had described her to Vanno as wearing a gray travelling dress. To-day she was in black, with a large velvet hat which set off her pale face, her pale eyes and hair, making her look striking and almost handsome; younger, too, than the cure had thought, though she had no air of girlishness. "Idina Bland" was the name Vanno had ejaculated, on hearing her description; and he had gone on to say that she was a distant relative, who had lived for some time in Rome and at Monte Della Robbia.

Certainly Vanno's surprise at hearing of her presence on the Riviera, and her questions concerning the family, had not been of an agreeable nature. He had thought that she was in America, and evidently would not have been sorry if she had stayed there; yet any uneasiness he felt had not, apparently, been on his own behalf. Angelo's name had been mentioned, and then Vanno had rather abruptly turned to another subject.

The cure blamed himself for curiosity, yet he could not help feeling curious concerning the young woman with eyes which he had described as like those of a statue.

He wondered if she knew that the Prince was at the Hotel de Paris, and if she had come there to see him; or if, perhaps, they had already met since he first mentioned her to Vanno. He wished that his small knowledge of English were larger, but though he spoke the language not at all, and understood only a little, he gathered here and there a word of the conversation. Idina Bland's companion was evidently telling her about the "celebrities"; therefore he deduced that she was better acquainted with the Riviera than was the younger woman. Now and then the cure caught the word "Annonciata," and he wondered if the pair were staying at the place of that name. He knew it well, the beautiful little pointed mountain above Mentone, with its deserted convent, its sad watching cypresses, its one hotel in a fragrant garden, and its famous view of the Corsican mirage. If Vanno's cousin lived in that hotel, which could be reached only by a funicular or a picturesque mule path, it looked as if she had a wish for retirement.

The priest would have liked to know if she had been at the Annonciata ever since her visit to him. Prince Della Robbia had not mentioned her, on New Year's Day, but that was no sure argument of his ignorance. Miss Bland's presence might not seem of importance to him. The cure asked himself if it would be indiscreet to bring up the subject when he next saw Angelo. Any day, now, he might have a summons to lunch with the bride and bridegroom, and to bless their villa, which he had been requested to do as soon as they were settled.

Almost involuntarily he kept alert, listening for the name of Della Robbia, but it was not uttered. The elder woman evidently enjoyed her position as cicerone, and at last her catalogue of celebrities so wearied the cure that he grew nervous. He turned to watch Lady Dauntrey, at a distance, trying to read her face and that of the melancholy man he took to be her husband. He did not like to think of Miss Grant—his Principino's Miss Grant—being at that woman's house.

"We shall see what can be done," he said to himself, trying to enliven the long minutes of his waiting, minutes which seemed to grow longer and ever longer, like shadows at evening.

By six o'clock the great hall and tea-room adjoining were nearly empty. The Dauntreys and the Holbeins had gone, and nearly all the pretty, chattering young women who were like advertisements in picture-papers. Still Miss Bland and her friend lingered over their tea and cakes, though they had ceased to eat or drink; and the cure could not help thinking that they had a special object in staying on. Eventually, however, they paid the hovering waiter, and slowly walked out, Idina Bland once again bending her head coldly to the priest.

Night's darkness shut round the brilliant Place of the Casino, like a blue wall surrounding a golden cube of light, and the cure would have a dark walk up the mule path. In order to come down that afternoon, he had given the service of vespers to a friend from Nice, who had just arrived for a short visit and a "rest cure"; still, he had expected to be back by this time. He began to feel oddly homesick and even unhappy in this hall which to his taste appeared garish. It seemed to him that he was a prisoner, and that he would be detained here forever. A childish yearning for his little parlour filled his heart. The waiters stared at him. But he sat very upright and unyielding on the chair which was made for lazy comfort.

"I will stay," he said to himself, "if it must be, till after midnight. Those two shall be made to save one another. It is the only way. And there is no time to waste."

At seven o'clock Vanno came in hastily, glancing at his watch. He walked so fast across the marble floor, with its islands of rugs, that he was at the foot of the stairway before the shorter-legged cure could intercept him; but at the sound of the familiar voice calling "Principino!" he turned, astonished.

The cure thought that he looked weary, and older than on that first blue-and-gold morning on the mountain; but the weariness was chased away by a smile of welcome.

"Why, Father, you here! This is an honour," Vanno said; but in his eyes there was the same shadow the cure had seen in Mary Grant's, the expectation of blame. Poor Vanno! He was resigning himself, his old friend saw, to a lecture. Perhaps he thought that Angelo, hearing of and disapproving certain stories, had begged the priest to come and scold him.

"You look tired," Vanno added, as they shook hands.

"So do you, my son," said the cure.

"I am, rather. But——" He stopped, yet the older man guessed the end of the sentence.

"You are dining out, and must get ready in a hurry."

"I'm due at Angelo's at eight. I've plenty of time though. I shall take a taxi. I hope you haven't been waiting long?"

"More than two hours. I would not go—even to oblige the waiters."

"Two hours! Then——"

"Yes. It was that, my Principino. I had to see you. I have come—to make you a reproach. You know why?"

Vanno's face hardened slightly. "I can imagine. Who told you? Angelo?"

"Who told me what?"

The Prince shrugged his shoulders, then nodded slightly in the direction of the Casino, which, through the big windows of the hall, could be seen sparkling with light. "That I've taken to amusing myself—over there. But it's no use scolding, Father. It's very good of you to feel an interest in your old pupil, though whoever has been telling tales oughtn't to have put you to this trouble. I must 'dree my ain weird,' as the Scots have it. I can translate it only by saying that I must go to the devil in my own way."

"I have not come to scold you for gambling, if that is what you mean," the cure said mildly. "Angelo has told me nothing. Nobody sent me to you. I have to reproach you for something quite different. I have seen Miss Grant, Principino. How you could suspect for a moment that there was anything but a pure soul behind those eyes, I cannot understand."

Vanno grew pale. He was obliged to be silent for an instant, in defence of his self-control. "I know very little of women's eyes, and of their souls nothing at all," he answered, harshly.

"So much the better, perhaps, because you can learn only good of the sex from Miss Grant's," said the cure.

"She will let me learn no lesson from her—unless, that there is no forgiveness for one mistake."

"That is because she cared so much that you hurt her cruelly. She did not tell me so, though we have spoken of you, but I saw how it was. There is no question of a mistake this time. And when you have talked together in my garden to-morrow afternoon, she will forgive and understand everything."

"Is she going to your place?"

"At three o'clock she will be there. You had better come a little earlier."

"I shall not come at all," Vanno blazed out, with violence. "She believes already that I've persecuted her. I won't give her reason to think it."

"Poor child, she is very unhappy," the cure sighed, meekly.

"At least, it isn't I who have made her so."

"Perhaps it is herself, and that is sadder—to have only herself to blame. You say you must be allowed to go to the devil in your own way. Well, you are a man. You do not want another man, even if he be a priest, to try and save you. But she needs a man to save her, a strong man who loves her well. She is drifting, without a rudder. She told me to-day—with such a look in her eyes!—that she has 'gambler's blood' in her veins. Only one thing can save her now, for she has got the idea in her head that she is the victim of Fate. The one thing is: an interest ten million times greater than gambling—Love."

The blood rushed to Vanno's face.

"I'm not fit——" he stammered.

"The soul that's in you is fit to do God's work, for love is part of God. 'Thy soul must overflow, if thou another's soul would reach.' Now, my son, I won't keep you any longer. At two-thirty to-morrow in my garden."

He did not remember until he was halfway up the mule path that he had meant to speak of Idina Bland.



XXIII

There came a moment when it seemed to Mary that she had promised to do an undignified thing, a thing which would make Vanno respect her less than ever. To go out deliberately to meet him, after all that had passed!—it was impossible. She must send a message to the cure saying that she could not come to his garden.

She even began such a letter, late on the night after his call; but as she wrote, the good brown eyes of the priest seemed to look at her, saying, "I thank you for trusting me." Then she tore up the sheet of paper, and went on trusting him blindly. She slept better afterward than she had slept since Christmas, her first night in the Villa Bella Vista.

Mary's habit was to go to the Casino every morning as soon as the doors opened, and she paid the artist whom she had met in the Paris train to seize a place for her, in the rush of early players. For doing this he received ten francs, which gave him two stakes at roulette, and sometimes enabled him to play for several hours before he was "cleaned out." She had lost a good deal by this time; all her original winnings, and had begun to fall back on her own capital, for her luck had never returned for more than a few hours together. A hateful sense of failure was upon her. She was feverishly anxious to get back her losses, not so much for the money's sake as for the pleasure of "beating the bank," as she had continually beaten it at first. Once, she had had the great white, good-natured animal under her feet, and people had looked at her with wondering admiration, as if she had been Una leading an obedient lion. Now the admiring looks, tributes to her lovely face and pretty clothes or jewels, were tempered with pity. The lion had Una in his mouth. There seemed to be no question in the public mind as to how he would eventually dispose of her. Mary felt the difference keenly. She could hardly submit to it. She wanted desperately to do something which, in every sense, would turn the tables. She risked huge sums in a wild hope that her courage might conquer luck, that again she might know the peculiar joy, the indescribable thrill of seeing the "bank" send for more money. Yet deep down within her a voice said that the moment would never come again; and she had no longer her old gay confidence in placing her stakes.

The crowds had ceased to collect round her table, to watch the "wonderful Miss Grant." It is the sensational wins, where piles of gold and notes mount up, that people rush to gaze upon. They are not amused by seeing money monotonously swept off the tables, even in immense sums. It discourages and depresses them. Nobody likes to be discouraged and depressed; therefore Mary had lost her audiences. Still she played on, and listened to no advice.

This morning, however, when she woke to remember her promise to the cure, she felt oddly disinclined to go to the Casino. Usually she wakened, after dozing fitfully, dreaming over again last night's worries, with an almost tremulous longing to be at the tables once more, a longing that seemed even more physical than mental, an aching of the nerves. Now the burning desire was suddenly assuaged, or forgotten in the powerful sway of a new thought, as illness can be forgotten in sudden fear or joy. The Casino appeared unimportant, trivial. All there was of her was already on the mountain, in the little garden which Rose Winter had said was like fairyland.

Mary did not wish to be questioned by anybody in the house, however; so she went out at the usual hour, found her employe in the long queue of those who waited before the Casino doors, paid him, and said that he might keep the seat for himself. She then went to walk on the terrace, hoping that no one she knew might be there: and it seemed likely that she would have her wish, for most of her acquaintances were keen gamblers who considered a morning wasted outside the Casino.

Mary walked to the eastern end of the terrace, where the ascenseur comes up from the level of the railway station below. She remembered how she had heard the little boy give his musical cry, and how she had looked out of the train window, and his smile had decided her not to go on. If she had gone on, how different everything would have been, how much better perhaps; and yet—she could not be sorry to-day, as she was sometimes in bitter moments, that she had come to Monte Carlo.

As she stood by the balustrade, looking away toward Italy, a voice she knew spoke behind her. She turned, and saw Hannaford, his hat off, his marred face pale in the sunshine.

"Oh," she said impulsively, "I think you're the one person I could endure talking to just now!"

Since the night of the ball on the yacht, when they had sat on the terrace in the moonlight, they had become good friends, she and Hannaford. She had no feeling of repulsion for him now. That was lost in pity, and forgotten in gratitude for the sympathy which made it possible to confide in him as she could in no one else. He stood entirely apart from other men, in her eyes, as he seemed to stand apart from life, and out of the sun. When she spoke to him of her troubles or hopes it was not, to her, as if she spoke to a man like other men, but to a sad spirit, who knew all the sadness her spirit could ever know.

Often they had walked here together on the terrace, but it was usually in the afternoon, when Hannaford could persuade her out of the Casino for a few minutes, to "revive herself with a breath of fresh air," or to see the gold-and-crimson sunset glory behind the Rock of Hercules. Since Hannaford had won the money he wanted for the buying of his villa, he had kept his resolution not to play seriously; but he spent a good deal of time in the Casino, unobtrusively watching over Mary. He did not feel the slightest desire to play, he told Carleton, and other men who were amused or made curious by the sudden change in him. He had a "new interest in life," he explained; and every one took it for granted that he meant the villa, now his own. But he never said it was that which had made life better worth living for him.

"If it's a question of bare endurance of me, I'll go," he answered Mary's greeting, "and leave you to walk by yourself."

"No," she assured him. "I'd really like to have you. I thought I wanted to be alone. But I see now that being with you is better."

Hannaford drew in a long breath of the exquisite air, and looked up into the sunshine as if for once he did not feel himself unfitted for the light. "Do you really mean that, I wonder?" he asked in a low voice.

"Yes. I wouldn't say it if I didn't," Mary answered with complete frankness. "How do you happen to be here at this time of day?"

"To tell the truth, I saw you go down the steps, and followed to ask the same question."

"I came, because for some reason I have to be out of doors. I couldn't go into the Rooms! I'd take a long walk, if I knew where to go."

"Good. I'm glad to hear it. Will you let me guide you somewhere, and give you a surprise?"

Mary looked undecided. "I'd like that. But I have an engagement this afternoon. Not in the Casino—or anywhere at Monte Carlo. It's up at Roquebrune. I have promised to go and see the—the cure's garden there."

"I'll bring you back from my expedition in plenty of time, if that's all," said Hannaford. He did not urge, but Mary knew that he very much wanted her to say yes.

"Will it be out of doors?"

"All the time out of doors, except for a few minutes when you're looking at a curiosity. First we have to get to Mentone. I'll spin you over there in a taxi. Then we can walk to—to the surprise. I'm sure you've never been."

"Is it to see your villa?" Mary asked, for he had suggested her going there some day.

"No, for I wouldn't take you to my house alone. We're not very conventional, you and I, I'm afraid; but there must be a party for your first visit to my 'castle in Spain' transplanted into Italy. I'll give you, and any people you like to ask, a picnic luncheon over there. But to-day I want you to lunch with me alone somewhere."

There was rather an odd ring in his voice, which made Mary look up quickly, but his face was calm, even stolid, as usual; and she thought that she had been mistaken. She put herself quietly into his care, feeling the comfort of perfect ease in his companionship. She could talk to him if she chose, or be silent. Whatever she liked, he too would like.

Half an hour later the taxi which Hannaford had hired stopped at the bridge dedicated to the Empress of Austria, the bridge which marks the dividing line between the communes of Roquebrune and Mentone. Then the two walked along the sea front, where the spray spouted gold in the sun, and a salt tang was on the breeze. It was a different world, somehow, from the world of Monte Carlo, though it was made up of pleasure-seekers from many countries. There were smartly dressed women, pretty girls with tennis rackets, men in flannels, with Panama hats pulled over their tanned faces; men with fine, clear profiles, who had been soldiers; solemn judges on holiday; fat old couples who waddled from side to side, as if their legs were set on at the corners, like the legs of chairs and tables; thin, middle-aged ladies with long, flat feet which showed under short tweed skirts; ladies clothed as unalluringly as possible as if to apologize for belonging to the female sex; elderly gentlemen with superior, selfish expressions, and faces like ten thousand other elderly gentlemen who live in pensions, talk of their "well-connected" friends, and collect all the newspapers to brood over in corners, as dogs collect bones. There were invalids, too, in bath-chairs, and children playing with huge St. Bernards or Great Danes, and charming actresses from the Mentone Casino, with incredibly slim figures, immense ermine muffs, and miniature Japanese spaniels. Mary could see no reason why these people who promenaded and listened to the music should be different both individually and in mass from a crowd to be seen at Monte Carlo, yet the fact remained that they were different; and among the faces there were none she knew, save those of the bird-like girl and her mother, half forgotten since the meeting in the train.

Hannaford took her by the Port, and past the old town whose heights towered picturesquely up and up, roof after roof, above the queer shops and pink and yellow houses of the sea level. Then came the East Bay, with its new villas and hotels, and background of hills silvered with olives; and at last, by a turn to the right which avoided the high road to Italy, they dipped into a rough path past a pebble floored stream, where pretty kneeling girls sang and scrubbed clothing on the stones.

Two douaniers, one French, the other Italian, lounging on opposite sides of the little stream flowing down from the Gorge of St. Louis, told that this was the frontier. It was not the road to Italy that Mary knew, when once or twice she had motored over the high bridge flung across the dark Gorge of St. Louis on excursions to Bordighera and San Remo. Nevertheless they were in Italy, and a mysterious change had come over the landscape, the indefinable change that belongs to frontiers. The buildings were shabbier; yet, as if in generous pity for their poorness, roses and pink geraniums draped them in cataracts of bloom. Gardens were less well kept, yet somehow more poetic. The colour of the old plastered walls and pergolas was more beautiful here, because more faded, stained green with moss, and splashed with many flower-like tints born of age and weather.

Always ahead, as Mary walked on with Hannaford, the high red wall of the Rochers Rouges glowed as if stained with blood where the sun struck it; and between the towering heights of rock and the turquoise sea he stopped her at an open-air restaurant roofed with palm leaves. There Hannaford ordered luncheon, at a table almost overhanging the water, and while the bouillabaisse was being made, he took her to the cave of the prehistoric skeletons.

Mary was interested, yet depressed. Life seemed such a little thing when she thought of all the lives that had passed in one unending procession of brief joys and tedious tragedies since those bones had been clothed with flesh and had caged hearts which beat as hotly as hers was beating now. "What does it matter," she said, "whether we are happy or not?"

"Does it not matter to ourselves?" Hannaford answered, rather than asked.

"Just at this moment, I'm not sure."

"Does it matter more about making others happy?"

"Perhaps. I should like to think that in my life I had made some others happy."

"I'm going to tell you by and by," he said, "how you can make one other very happy. It's just a suggestion I have to offer. There may be nothing in it."

He spoke rather dryly and perfunctorily, as he helped her down the stairs of the cave-dwellers' rock-house. Mary had a vague idea that he meant to interest her in a "sad case," as he had done once or twice before, when he thought she needed to be "taken out of herself." She expected to hear a tale of some poor girl who had "lost all," and must be redeemed from disaster by a helping hand lest worse things happen; and as he was evidently determined not to tell his story then, Mary waited without impatience.

They were lunching early, and had finished before many people began to arrive dustily in carriages and automobiles. Hannaford had ordered his taxi at two o'clock, and there was no hurry. He told the Italian musicians to play softly, some simple old airs that he loved. Then, when Mary sat staring dreamily into the water, far down through clear green depths, he put his elbows on the table, his chin in his hands, and leaned across to her.

"Of course you know," he said, "that I love you. Don't speak yet—and don't look at me, please. Keep your eyes on the water. I told you I had something to ask; but it's not for your love I'm asking. I know that no woman, not even with your kind and gentle heart, could love a man like me. But something has hurt you. I told you once before that I didn't want to hear what it was. Only I'm afraid you're not happy, and perhaps—if the hurt was in your heart—you may never be happy again in exactly the old way, as a young girl is when she is full of hope. We feel alike about a lot of things, you and I. We are good friends. At least, you look on me as your friend. And as for you, no man will ever be your friend, as you think of that word. I'm your friend to this extent, that you've given me back my interest in the world. I used to want to get out of it all, but I don't now, because you're in it. Anyhow, I don't want to go if you'll let me be of use to you—if you'll let me love you. Is it possible, dear, that you could think of marrying me—just in a friendly sort of way, you know, to have a protector, a man to look after you, and worship you, without any return except a little sympathy and kindness?"

Not once had Mary looked up at him, after the first fluttering glance of surprise when he began. Even when Hannaford stopped, and waited, she still kept her eyes on the water; but he saw that her hand trembled on the balustrade, and that a little pulse beat in her throat.

"I never thought!" she quavered, miserably.

"I know that, very well. I wouldn't believe most women who made such an excuse, after being as kind to me as you have been—a man like me! I should have thought you knew, and that you were playing, as the boys play with the frogs. But I realized from the first that you weren't going to 'think,' unless I put thoughts into your head. I wouldn't ask such a thing of you if you were happy, but you're not happy. I don't believe you know what to do with your future. You're not interested in things, as you were when you first came—except in the Casino, and that can't go on forever. The sort of thing you're doing now eats a woman's soul away. Men can stand it longer than women. Almost anything else would be better for you. Even marrying me. Maybe you would take an interest in the place I've bought. It could be made so beautiful! You can't imagine the joy I've had in simply picturing you there."

"I should love to come—to see it—but only as your friend," Mary said, stammering guiltily, as if she were doing wrong in refusing him. "Oh, I can't tell you how sorry, how sorry I am!"

"You needn't be sorry," he answered. "I might have known what I wanted was too good to come true. I might have known I was beyond the pale. And I did know, in my heart. Only I had to find out, for sure. You mustn't mind. I wouldn't be without the memory of this day with you, anyhow—not for the world. It's good enough to live on for the rest of my life."

"But—you speak as if we weren't to see each other any more," said Mary. "Can't we go on being friends?"

"Yes. Wherever we are, we'll 'go on being friends.' But you may leave Monte. You probably will. And I—I shall be leaving too. Still, we'll 'go on being friends.' And the next favour I ask of you, if you possibly can, will you grant it?"

"Indeed I will," Mary promised eagerly. "Ask me now."

"Not yet. Not quite yet. The time hasn't come. But it will before long. Then you must remember."

"I'll remember always." She stood up and held out her hand. He took it in his, and shook it heartily. His manner was so quiet, so commonplace, his face and voice so calm, that she could hardly believe that he really cared, that he really "minded much," as she put it to herself. Can a man shake hands like that with a woman, she wondered, if he is broken-hearted because she has refused him?

"Now we must go," she said. "I—shouldn't like to be late for my appointment."

"You shan't be late," he assured her, cheerfully. Then, just as they were moving away from the table, he stopped. "Will you give me one of those roses," he asked, "to keep for a souvenir?"

Their waiter had adorned the little feast with a glass containing a few short-stemmed roses. Mary selected the prettiest, a white one just unfolding from the bud, and gave it to Captain Hannaford. So quickly that no one saw, he laid it against her faintly smiling lips, then hid it inside his coat.

When the taxi had rushed up the upper Corniche and had taken the carriage road to Roquebrune, Mary said goodbye to Hannaford in the Place under the great wall of the old castle. She guessed that, perhaps, he would have liked an invitation to go with her to the cure's garden, which he had never seen. But she did not give the invitation. She even lingered, so that he must have seen she wished him to drive away; and he took the hint, if it were a hint, at once.

"Goodbye," he said, pleasantly. "Thank you a thousand times, for everything."

"But it's I who have to thank you!" she protested.

"If I could think you would ever feel like thanking me for anything, I should be glad."

He released her hand, after pressing it once very hard; got into the taxi, gave the chauffeur the name of his hotel in the Condamine, and was whirled away. The last that Mary saw of him he was looking back, waving his hat as if he were saying goodbye for a long, long time.



XXIV

The big clock had just finished striking three when Mary entered the church of the old rock-town on the hill. She could feel the vibration of the last stroke, as if the heart of the church were beating heavily, in sympathy with her own.

Coming into the dimness after the golden bath of sunlight outside was like being plunged into night. For an instant all was dark before Mary's eyes, as if she had been pushed forward with her face against a black curtain. The once familiar perfume of incense came pungently to her nostrils, sweet yet melancholy, like a gentle reproach for neglect. She seemed to be again in the convent chapel of St. Ursula-of-the-Lake. Every well-known feature of the place was sharply visible; she saw the carved screen of black oak; the faces of Reverend Mother and the sisters, white and ardent in the starlike light of tall wax candles; she heard the voices of women singing, crystal clear, sweet and sexless as the song of angels. The old oppression under which she had panted in the last days of her novitiate fell upon her again, like a weight. She felt that her soul was in a strait-jacket. Then, as she had often felt—and prayed not to feel—while the pure voices soared, the sensation of being shut up in a coffin came back to her. She was nailed into a coffin, lying straight and still under cool, faintly scented flowers; dead, yet not dead enough to rest. The terrible longing to burst the coffin lid and live—live—made her draw a deep, quick breath as of one choking, just as she had often struggled gaspingly back to realities after this obsession, while the singing went on in the dim chapel of the convent.

It began, and was all over in a few seconds. By the time her eyes had grown used to the twilight the impression of old, past things was gone; and relieved, as if she had waked from a dream of prison, Mary took note of everything round her: the largeness of the church, the effect of bareness, the simple decorations of the altar. She dipped her finger in the holy water, and knelt to pray for a moment, wondering if she had the right: and when she rose from her knees, the cure stood before her.

"Welcome, my daughter," he said. "I thought you were of the old faith. Now I am sure. Thank you for coming. I should like to give you my blessing before you go into the garden."

Presently he pointed to the open door which framed a bright picture of sky, and flowers growing against a low green and gold background of orange and lemon trees.

"Go out alone," he told her. "I have to stay here in church a while. Walk down the path to the wall, and look at the beautiful view. Then to the left you will see an arbour at the end of the garden. Wait there for me. I shall follow before you have time to grow impatient."

He said nothing of Vanno, whom she had been brought there to meet, and to "save." Perhaps the Prince had not cared to come. This seemed very probable to Mary; yet the thought that he might be avoiding her did not stab the girl's heart with any sharp pang of shame or pain. A radiant peace had taken possession of her spirit, stealing into it unaware, as the perfume of lilies may take possession of the senses, before the lilies are seen. Though she felt gratitude and something almost like love for the cure, she was glad that he had sent her into his garden alone. The flowery knot pinned on the bare breast of mountain seemed even more to her than the "fairyland" Rose Winter had described. "Angel-land," she thought, as she saw how secret and hidden the bright spot was on its high jutting point of rock, with its guardian wall of towering, ivied ruin on one side, and the tall pale church on another. She felt that here was a place in which she might find herself again, the self that had got lost in the dark, somewhere far, far below this height.

She stood by the low wall which kept the garden from the precipice; and when she had looked eastward to Italy, and westward where the prostrate giant of the Tete de Chien mourns over Monaco, she turned toward the arbour in which the cure had told her to wait. Most of the big gold and copper grape-leaves had fallen now, but some were left, crisped by frost until they seemed to have been cut from thin sheets of metal; and over the mass of knotted branches rained a torrent of freshly opened roses. They and their foliage made a thick screen, and Mary could not see the inside of the arbour; but as she reached the entrance Vanno stood just within, waiting for her, very pale, but with a light on his face other than the sunlight which streamed over him. Then Mary knew that something, more intimately herself than was her reasoning mind, had expected him, and had never believed that he would refuse to come.

He held out both hands, without a word; and without a word she gave him hers. He lifted them to his lips, and kissed first one, then the other. Still keeping her hands fast, he drew them down so that her arms were held straight at her sides. Standing thus, they looked into each other's eyes, and the glory of the sun reflected back from Vanno's almost dazzled Mary. Never in her life had she known happiness like this. She felt that such a moment was worth being born for, even if there were no after joy in a long gray existence; and the truth of what she had many times read without believing, pierced to her heart, like a bright beam from heaven: the truth that love is the one thing on earth which God meant to last forever.