She stopped suddenly. Laurence Ferrol was gazing at her in amazement. She rose from her seat, trembling. "I will go away a little," she said. "I beg your pardon--and Miss Ferrol's." She turned her back upon them and went away. Ferrol sat holding her little round, white-feather fan helplessly, and staring after her until she disappeared. It was several seconds before the silence was broken. It was he who broke it. "I don't know what it means," he said, in a low voice. "I don't know what I have done!" In a little while he got up and began to roam aimlessly about the gallery. He strolled from one end to the other with his hands thrust in his coat pockets. Olivia, who had remained seated, knew that he was waiting in hopes that Louisiana would return. He had been walking to and fro, looking as miserable as possible, for about half an hour, when at last she saw him pause and turn half round before the open door of an upper corridor leading out upon the verandah. A black figure stood revealed against the inside light. It was Louisiana, and, after hesitating a moment, she moved slowly forward. She had not recovered her color, but her manner was perfectly quiet. "I am glad you did not go away," she said. Ferrol had only stood still at first, waiting her pleasure, but the instant she spoke he made a quick step toward her. "I should have felt it a very hard thing not to have seen you again before I slept," he said. She made no reply, and they walked together in silence until they reached the opposite end of the gallery. "Miss Ferrol has gone in," she said then. He turned to look and saw that such was the case. Suddenly, for some reason best known to herself, Olivia had disappeared from the scene. Louisiana leaned against one of the slender, supporting pillars of the gallery. She did not look at Ferrol, but at the blackness of the mountains rising before them. Ferrol could not look away from her. "If you had not come out again," he said, after a pause, "I think I should have remained here, baying at the moon, all night." Then, as she made no reply, he began to pour himself forth quite recklessly. "I cannot quite understand how I hurt you," he said. "It seemed to me that I must have hurt you, but even while I don't understand, there are no words abject enough to express what I feel now and have felt during the last half hour. If I only dared ask you to tell me----" She stopped him. "I can't tell you," she said. "But it is not your fault--it is nothing you could have understood--it is my fault--all my fault, and--I deserve it." He was terribly discouraged. "I am bewildered," he said. "I am very unhappy." She turned her pretty, pale face round to him swiftly. "It is not you who need be unhappy," she exclaimed. "It is I!" The next instant she had checked herself again, just as she had done before. "Let us talk of something else," she said, coldly. "It will not be easy for me to do so," he answered, "but I will try."