All the time she who spoke was busy binding something to the place on my side where the pain burned like white metal. And as she did so she crooned softly over me, saying as before--"My poor boy! my poor boy!" It was like the murmuring of a dove over its nestling. Again and again I was borne away from her and from myself on the floods of great waters. The universe alternately opened out to infinite horrors of vastness, and shrank to pinpoint dimensions to crush me. Through it all I heard my love's voice, and was content to let my head bide just where it lay. Ever and anon I came to the surface, as a diver does lest he die. I heard myself say--"It was an error in judgment!" ... Then after a pause--"nothing but an error in judgment." And I felt that on which my head rested shake with a little earthquake of hysterical laughter. The strain had been too great, yet I had said the right word. "Yes," she said softly, "my poor boy, it has been indeed an error in judgment for both of us!" "But a blessed error, Lucia," I said, answering her when she least expected it. A dark shape flitted before my dazzled eyes. The Countess looked up. "Leonardi!" she called, "tell me, has one of your people done this?" "Nay," said the man, "none of the servants of the Bond nor yet of the Mafia. Pietro the muleteer hath done it of his own evil heart for robbery. Here are the watch and purse!" "And the murderer--where is he?" said again Lucia. "Let him be brought!" "He has had an accident, Excellency. He is dead," said Leonardi simply. Then they took me up very softly, and bore me to the door from which I had fled forth. Lucia walked with me. In the dusk of the leaves, while the bearers were fumbling with the inner doors, which would swing in their faces, Lucia put her hot lips to my hand, which she had held kindly in hers all the way. "Pardon me, Douglas," she said, and there was a break in her voice. I felt the ocean of tears rising about me, and feared that I could not find the words fittingly to answer. For the pain had made me weak. "Nay," I said at last, just over my breath, "it was my folly. Forgive me, little Saint Lucy of the Eyes! It was--it was--what was it that it was?--I have forgotten--" "An error in judgment!" said Saint Lucy of the Eyes, and forgave me, though I cannot remember more about it. I suppose I could take the title if I chose, for these things are easily arranged in Italy; but Lucia and I think it will keep for the second Stephen Douglas. IV UNDER THE RED TERROR _What of the night, O Antwerp bells, Over the city swinging, Plaintive and sad, O kingly bells, In the winter midnight ringing?_ _And the winds in the belfry moan From the sand-dunes waste and lone, And these are the words they say, The turreted bells and they--_