The impressionable girl trembled. He knew he was dear to her, and for that reason, judging of her by himself, he forbore to urge his advantage, conceiving it base to fear that loving him she could yield her hand to another; and it was the critical instant. She was almost in his grasp. A word of sharp entreaty would have swung her round to see her situation with his eyes, and detest and shrink from it. He committed the capital fault of treating her as his equal in passion and courage, not as metal ready to run into the mould under temporary stress of fire. Even later in the morning, when she was cooler and he had come to speak, more than her own strength was needed to resist him. The struggle was hard. The boat’s head had been put about for Venice, and they were among the dusky-red Chioggian sails in fishing quarters, expecting momently a campanile to signal the sea-city over the level. Renée waited for it in suspense. To her it stood for the implacable key of a close and stifling chamber, so different from this brilliant boundless region of air, that she sickened with the apprehension; but she knew it must appear, and soon, and therewith the contraction and the gloom it indicated to her mind. He talked of the beauty. She fretted at it, and was her petulant self again in an epigrammatic note of discord. He let that pass. “Last night you said ‘one night,’” he whispered. “We will have another sail before we leave Venice.” “One night, and in a little time one hour! and next one minute! and there’s the end,” said Renée. Her tone alarmed him. “Have you forgotten that you gave me your hand?” “I gave my hand to my friend.” “You gave it to me for good.” “No; I dared not; it is not mine.” “It is mine,” said Beauchamp. Renée pointed to the dots and severed lines and isolated columns of the rising city, black over bright sea. “Mine there as well as here,” said Beauchamp, and looked at her with the fiery zeal of eyes intent on minutest signs for a confirmation, to shake that sad negation of her face. “Renée, you cannot break the pledge of the hand you gave me last night.” “You tell me how weak a creature I am.” “You are me, myself; more, better than me. And say, would you not rather coast here and keep the city under water?” She could not refrain from confessing that she would be glad never to land there. “So, when you land, go straight to your father,” said Beauchamp, to whose conception it was a simple act resulting from the avowal. “Oh! you torture me,” she cried. Her eyelashes were heavy with tears. “I cannot do it. Think what you will of me! And, my friend, help me. Should you not help me? I have not once actually disobeyed my father, and he has indulged me, but he has been sure of me as a dutiful girl. That is my source of self-respect. My friend can always be my friend.” “Yes, while it’s not too late,” said Beauchamp.