"We had looked forward to this home-coming of my son," she went on, branching off into another talk, "as to the beginning of a fresh epoch of our lives, his father and I, we that are no longer young. To him we had looked for the carrying on of our race. From my daughter-in-law we have been obliged to despair of issue. Andrea, suitably married and established in the home of his ancestors, is what we all dreamed one day to see--nor do I even now entirely abandon the hope of seeing it." With burning cheeks, and an awful sense that a web was being woven about me, I rose stiffly from my seat, and went over to a cabinet where stood my mother's portrait. I looked a moment at the pictured eyes, as if for guidance, then said in a low voice: "Marchesa, I have given my word to your son, and only at his bidding can I take it back." "It does not take much penetration," she replied, "to know that my son is the last person to bid you do anything of the kind. That he is the soul of chivalry, that the very fact of a person being in an unfortunate position would of itself attract his regard, a child might easily discover." She spoke with such genuine feeling that for a moment my heart went out towards her; for a moment our eyes met, and not unkindly. "No doubt," she went on, after a pause, and rising from her seat, "no doubt you represented the precautions we thought necessary to adopt, for your own protection as well my son's, as a form of persecution. If you did not actually represent it to him, I feel sure you gave him to understand that such was the case." She had hit the mark. With an agonizing rush of shame, of despair, I remembered my own outbreak on the piazza that morning; how I had confided to Andrea, unasked, my intention of going away, and of the sorrow the prospect gave me. Had I been mistaken? Had the message of his eyes, his voice, his manner, meant nothing? Had I indeed been unmindful of my woman's modesty? The Marchesa was aware at once of having struck home, and the monotonous tones began again. "Of course, Miss Meredith, if you choose to take advantage of my son's chivalry, and of his passing fancy--for Andrea is exceedingly susceptible and, no doubt, believes himself in love with you--if, I say, you choose to do this, there is no more to be said. "Andrea will never take back his word, on that you may rely. But be sure of this, his life will be spoiled, and he will know it. It is not to be expected that you should realize the meaning of ancestral pride, of family honour. Perhaps you think the sentiments which have taken centuries to grow can wither up in a day before the flame of a foolish fancy?" She had conquered. Moving over to her I looked straight in her face. My voice rang strange and hollow: "By marrying your son I should bring no disgrace upon him nor his family. But I do not intend to marry him."