The next morning M. Volheno sent for me and I was glad to find him anxious to hush up the whole matter of the Abduction Plot. In pursuance of this policy, two conditions were attached to Miralda’s pardon--absolute silence about everything and a year’s expatriation for her, her mother and the visconte. Vasco was to be transferred to a regiment in Portuguese Africa. I told him of Barosa’s death, and that he was really Luis Beriardos, Dom Miguel’s trusted agent, and he was genuinely relieved. Barosa’s fate was never publicly known and he was buried under a different name as the result of a concocted identification. The fate of his associates on the _Rampallo_ I never learned. The yacht and the prisoners on her were handed over to the men whom Volheno sent out in the _Stella_ with secret instructions; and when they returned neither the skipper nor Burroughs knew anything. By the time of the _Stella’s_ arrival, the viscontesse had completed all arrangements for the year’s enforced absence; and a few hours after the yacht’s anchor was dropped it was weighed again and I was taking a farewell look at the city. Miralda and her mother were below and Pia was with them. She was to sail for America from Southampton. I was heartily glad to go. It had been a strenuous love quest, but all the trouble and the dangers were forgotten in that joyous hour of success, in the glowing consciousness that I had won the woman I loved, and the thrilling realization of my hopes. As I stood dreaming of the happiness to come, there was the soft rustle of a skirt and a hand was slipped into my arm. “You are glad to go, Ralph?” asked Miralda. “You were smiling.” “I was thinking of my fellow passenger,” I whispered. “And she is smiling, too.” But her eyes were very thoughtful behind the smile. It was natural. All her young life had been passed in the city she was leaving. She turned her eyes from me, let them roam over the glorious panorama of the city and the hills beyond, and then turned to me again. “I was trying to think if I have any regrets. I have not. I have not in all my heart a thought that is not wholly happy at being with you. But it has been my home.” “I know,” I said, understanding; and I took her hand and pressed my lips to it. “You will grow to love the new home, and it shall be one of peace and content and, so far as I can ensure it, of happiness.” “Is that all?” she asked, with half mischievous, half wistful glance. “What more would you have, dearest?” “That which draws me to it and makes me happy to go,” she said in a whisper. “Ah, our love. To last, please God, until life’s end.” She caught her breath, pressed closer to me, sighed and then smiled as she repeated in a whisper of prayerful earnestness: “Until life’s end.” And then we stood together in silence too happy for words, until the yacht had turned out of the river mouth and the city was hidden from view. THE END Butler & Tenner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.