She had not anticipated so easy a victory. Her cheek flushed, almost as if with compunction. She held out her hands towards me. But as for me, I turned away ungraciously, and, going up to the chest, began to lift out my under linen, and to pile it on the bed. "Marchesa, do not thank me, do not praise me? I do not know if I am doing right or wrong." "Signorina, you have taken the course of an honourable woman." I went over to the corner where my box stood, and lifted the lid with trembling hands. "Marchesa, will your servant find out what hour of the night the train leaves for Genoa? and will he have a drosky ready in time to take me to the station?" "Miss Meredith, there is no necessity for this haste. You cannot depart like this, and without advising your family." I laid a dress--the little black dress I had worn at the dance--at the bottom of the box. It ought to have gone at the top, but such details did not occupy me at the moment. "I trust," I said, "that there may be no difficulties placed in the way of my immediate departure." She came up to me in some agitation. "But, signorina!" "Marchesa," I answered, "you have my promise. Is not that what you wanted?" I intended a dismissal, I frankly own it, but the Marchesa took my rudeness with such humility that for the moment I felt ashamed of myself. "You have forced me, Miss Meredith, to speak to you as I have never spoken before to a stranger beneath my roof. To fly in the face of the hospitable traditions of the house----" There came a knock at the door, and the servant announced that the Marchesino desired to speak with Miss Meredith. We two women, who both loved Andrea, looked at one another. "You will have to tell him yourself, signorina; from no one else would my son receive your message." The Marchesa turned away as she spoke. "I will write to him." Hastily dismissing the servant with words to the effect that Andrea should be waited on in a few minutes, the Marchesa handed me, in silence, the little paper-case which lay on the table. With uncertain fingers I wrote: "MARCHESINO,--We were both of us hasty and ill-advised this morning. I must thank you for the great honour you have done me, but at the same time I must beg of you to release me from the promise I have made.--ELSIE MEREDITH." I handed the open sheet to the Marchesa, who read it carefully, folded it up, thanked me and went from the room. Then suddenly the great bed began to waltz, the open box in the corner, the painted ceiling, the chest and cabinet to whirl about in hopeless confusion. I don't know how it came about, but for the first time in my life I fainted. CHAPTER XIV. RELEASED FROM HER VOW. It was four o'clock in the afternoon; already the front of the house was in shadow, and the drawing-room was cool and dark. Here Andrea and I were standing face to face; both pale, both resolute, while the Marchesa looked from one to the other with anxious eyes.