"Safe! I am so tired. What a night!" the elder of the two women sighed. "What a night, truly! I should like to know what it has all been about. To run through dark streets and alleys, to hide for hours, as if I were a thief or a fugitive from justice, is neither to my taste nor to my liking." "Kitty!" brokenly. "I know! In a moment I shall be on my knees to you, but first I must speak out my mind. Why did you lose your head? Why did you not stand perfectly still when you saw that we were followed from the Casino? He would not have dared to molest us in the open. No, you had to run!" "He would have entered the car with us, he would have known where we were going, he would have had the patience to wait till he saw beneath our veils. I know that man!" with a hopeless anger. "It was your flight. It told him plainly that you recognized him." "I was afraid, Kitty. It was instinct which caused me to fly, blindly." "And there you left me, standing like a fool, wondering whether to run or not." Kitty was angry for half a dozen reasons. "And why should you run from any man?" La Signorina did not reply, preferring to hold her tongue, lest it overthrow her. She unwound the thick veil and unpinned her hat. Her hands trembled, and in her eyes and about her mouth there was the weariness of ages. Yet, not all this weariness, not all these transitory lines of pain, took away one jot of her beauty. "Kitty," she began sadly, "in this world no one trusts us wholly. We must know why, why; loyalty must have reasons, chivalry must have facts. You have vowed your love and loyalty a hundred times, and still, when a great crisis confronts me, you question, you grow angry, you complain, because my reasons are unknown to you. Because I am lonely, because I feel the need of even your half-hearted loyalty, I shall tell you why, why. Do you know what terror is? No. Well, it was blind terror which made me run. I counted not the consequences; my one thought was of instant flight. I shall tell you why I am lonely, why the world, bright to you, is dark. I am proud, but I shall bend my pride." With a quick movement she lifted her head high and her eyes burned into Kitty's very heart. "I am--" "Stop! No, no! I forbid you!" Kitty put her hands over her ears. She might gain the secret, but she knew that she would lose the heart of the woman it concerned. "I am wrong, wrong. I have promised to follow you loyally, without question. I will keep that promise. I am only angry because you would not let me speak to Mr. Hillard. And when he called me by name, it was doubly hard. Had I not seen your hand waving from the doorway, I should have spoken. Who this Italian is I do not care. It is sufficient that you fear him. And I myself harbor no kind feelings toward him," rubbing her bruised wrist. "And if he comes down one side of the street I shall take to the other, to say nothing of dodging round the nearest corner. But he is very handsome," Kitty added thoughtfully.