She made nothing of it, the years of the human chase pursued her. Was she not alone now? _He_ could never help her again, and he had been so great a part of her life. "What is the good of telling me this? It is not my money, Mr. Faber. I must go and get some for myself when the ship stops. You had no right to take me away from Ragusa--my home was there. Why have you done it?" He tried to tell her, but it was very difficult. In some moods she was little better than a waif of the streets, who had learned to beg like a mendicant at a church door; in others her birthright gave her a wonderful dignity before which the plebeian in John Faber was dumb. "I want you to have a new home, Maryska, one that you'll be glad to call your own. That's why I'm taking you to England. Miss Gabrielle there is going to live with you and so's her father. But it will be your own house and everything that's in it yours. You'll like it, sure, when you see it, my dear. I don't think you'll want to go back to Ragusa again." She listened pensively. "Will that boy be there?" "The one who's playing games?" "Yes, the boy who laughs." "Oh, I dare say he'll come sometimes. Do you like him, then?" "I don't know; he is very young, is he not?" "I haven't asked his age, but I dare say he'll tell you." "I should not ask him. Men do not like to tell their age. He never would. Why are you paying for this house you speak of? You have no right to pay for anything for me. You know that very well." The question gave him his opportunity, and he told her as much of the story as she could comprehend. Her father had been the best friend he had ever known. He had taken his mother to America at the crisis of her fortunes. It was an obligation he could never forget. He had meant to do so much in return, but fate was against them both. They must act together henceforth and make the best of their lives they could. She must help him to honour his mother's name. In her turn Maryska replied but vaguely. He had thought that she was not listening, but when he had finished, and following a little interval of silence, she threw herself back upon her cushions and cried wildly, "Jesus Christ! I never had a mother to honour." And that surely was as lamentable a confession as any he had heard from her lips. VI They were off Venice upon the following night, and so favoured by fortune that the waxing moon gave them a vista of the hundred isles, beautiful beyond compare.