blood was hot and singing in his ears. Then, all at once, something in her appealed to him, her young delicacy, her dawn-like purity, her exquisite fresh maidenhood. It seemed a crime to touch her lips as though she had been a mature woman. He dropped her hand, and his long arms brought her tenderly and softly up to his breast; and as her head fell back, and her lids drooped, he kissed her eyes with infinite gentleness, first the one and then the other, again and again, till she smiled in the dark, and hid her face against his coat, and he found only her silky hair to kiss again.
'I love you—say it, too,' he whispered in her ear.
'Ah, yes! so much, so dearly!' came her low answer.
Then he took her hand again, and brought it up to his lips close to her face; and his lips pressed the small fingers passionately, almost roughly, very longingly.
'Come,' he said. 'We must be alone—come into the garden.'
He led her across the bridge, and suddenly they were in the clear moonlight; but he went on quickly, lest they should be noticed through the open door from within. The air was warm and still and dry, as it often is in spring after the evening chill has passed.
'We could not go back into the ballroom, could we?' he asked, as he drew her away along a gravel walk between high box hedges.
'No. How could we—now?' Her hand tightened a little on his arm.
They stopped before a statue at the end of the walk, full in the light, a statue that had perhaps been a Daphne, injured ages ago, and stone-gray where it was not very white, with flying draperies broken off short in the folds, and a small, frightened face that seemed between laughing and crying. One fingerless hand pointed at the moon.
Orsino leaned back against the pedestal, and lovingly held Vittoria before him, and looked at her, and she smiled, her lips parting again, and just glistening darkly in the light as a dewy rose does in moonlight. The music was very far away now, but the plashing of the fountain was near.
'I love you!' said Orsino once more, as though no other words would do.
A deep sigh of happiness said more than the words could, and the stillness that followed meant most of all, while Vittoria gently took his two hands and nestled closer to him, fearlessly, like a child or a young animal.
'But you will not go away—now?' she asked pleadingly.
Orsino's face changed a little, as he remembered the rest of his life, and all he had undertaken to do. He had dreamily hoped that he might forget it.
'We will not talk of that,' he answered.
'How can I help it, if it is true? You will not go—say you will not go!'
'I have promised. But there is time—or, at least, I shall soon come back. It is not so far to Sicily—'
'Sicily? You are going to Sicily?' She seemed surprised.
'I thought you knew where I was going—' he began.
'No—I guessed; I was not sure. Tell me! Why must you go?'
'I must go because I have promised. San Giacinto would think it very strange if I changed my mind.'
'It is stranger that you should go—and with him! Yes—I see—you are going to take possession of our old place—'
Her voice suddenly expressed the utmost anxiety, as she sprang from one conclusion to another without a mistake. She pressed his hands tightly, and her face grew pale again with fear for him.
'Oh please, please, stay here!' she cried. 'If it were anywhere else—if it were to do anything else—'
'Why?' he asked, in surprise. 'I thought you did not care much for the old place. If I had known that it would hurt you—'
'Me? No! It is not that—it is for you! They will kill you. Oh, do not go! Do not go!' She spoke in the greatest distress.
Orsino was suddenly inclined to laugh, but he saw how much in earnest she was.
'Who will kill me?' he asked, as though humouring her. 'What do you mean?'
Vittoria was more than in earnest; she was almost in terror for him. Her small hands clung to his arm nervously, catching him and then loosing their hold. But she said nothing, though she seemed to be hesitating in some sort of struggle. Though she loved him with all the whole-hearted impulses of her nature, it was not easy to tell him what she meant. The Sicilian blood revolted at the thought of betraying her wild brother, who had joined the outlaws, and would be in waiting for Orsino and his cousin when they should try to take possession of the lands.
'You must not go!' she cried, suddenly throwing her arms round his neck as though she could keep him by force. 'You shall not go—oh, no, no, no!'
'Vittoria—you have got some mad idea in your head—it is absurd—who should try to kill me? Why? I have no enemies. As for the brigands, everyone laughs at that sort of thing nowadays. They belong to the comic opera!' He let himself laugh a little at last, for the idea really amused him.
But Vittoria straightened herself beside him and grew calmer, for she was sensible and saw that he thought her foolishly afraid.
'In Rome the outlaws belong to the comic opera—yes,' she answered gravely. 'But in Sicily they are a reality. I am a Sicilian, and I know. People are killed by them almost every day, and the mafia protects them. They are better armed than the soldiers, for they carry Winchester rifles—'
'What do you know about Winchester rifles?' asked Orsino, smiling.
'My brothers have them,' she said quietly. 'And the outlaws almost all have them.'
'I daresay. But why should they wish to kill me? They do not know me.'
Vittoria was silent a moment, making up her mind what she should tell him. She was not positively sure of anything, but she had heard Francesco say lately that Camaldoli was a place easier to buy than to hold while Ferdinando was alive, and she knew what that meant, when coupled with the occasional comments upon Ferdinando's mode of life, which escaped in Francesco's incautious conversation at home. To a Sicilian, the meaning of the whole situation was not hard to guess. At the same time Vittoria was both desperately anxious for Orsino and afraid that he might laugh at her fears, as he had done already.
'This is it,' she said at last in a low and earnest voice. 'It has nothing to do with you or your cousin, personally, nor with your taking possession of Camaldoli, so far as I am concerned. But it is a wild and desolate place, and all through this year a large band of outlaws have been in the forests on the other side of the valley. They would never have hurt my brothers, who are Sicilians and poor, and who did not trouble them either. But you and your cousin are great people, and rich, and not Sicilians, and the mafia will be against you, and will support the brigands if they prevent you from taking possession of Camaldoli. You would be opposed to the mafia; you would bring soldiers there to fight the outlaws. Therefore they will kill you. It is certain. No one ever escapes them. Do you understand? Now you will not go, of course, since I have explained it all.'
Orsino was somewhat puzzled, though it all seemed so clear to her.
'This mafia—what is it?' he asked. 'We hear it spoken of, but we do not any of us really
