I came to the table that evening full of uneasiness, very unhappy, feeling it an effort to bring myself into her presence and endure be it her regard or her neglect. To my relief she sent word that she was not well and would keep her chamber; and Fifanti smiled oddly as he stroked his blue chin and gave me a sidelong glance. We ate in silence, and when the meal was done, I departed, still without a word to my preceptor, and went to shut myself up again in my room. I slept ill that night, and very early next morning I was astir. I went down into the garden somewhere about the hour of sunrise, through the wet grass that was all scintillant with dew. On the marble bench by the pond, where the water-lilies were now rotting, I flung myself down, and there was I found a half-hour later by Giuliana herself. She stole up gently behind me, and all absorbed and moody as I was, I had no knowledge of her presence until her crisp boyish voice startled me out of my musings. “Of what do we brood here so early, sir saint?” quoth she. I turned to meet her laughing eyes. “You... you can forgive me?” I faltered foolishly. She pouted tenderly. “Should I not forgive one who has acted foolishly out of love for me?” “It was, it was...” I cried; and there stopped, all confused, feeling myself growing red under her lazy glance. “I know it was,” she answered. She set her elbows on the seat's tall back until I could feel her sweet breath upon my brow. “And should I bear you a resentment, then? My poor Agostino, have I no heart to feel? Am I but a cold, reasoning intelligence like that thing my husband? O God! To have been mated to that withered pedant! To have been sacrificed, to have been sold into such bondage! Me miserable!” “Giuliana!” I murmured soothingly, yet agonized myself. “Could none have foretold me that you must come some day?” “Hush!” I implored her. “What are you saying?” But though I begged her to be silent, my soul was avid for more such words from her--from her, the most perfect and beautiful of women. “Why should I not?” said she. “Is truth ever to be stifled? Ever?” I was mad, I know--quite mad. Her words had made me so. And when, to ask me that insistent question, she brought her face still nearer, I flung down the reins of my unreason and let it ride amain upon its desperate, reckless course. In short, I too leaned forward, I leaned forward, and I kissed her full upon those scarlet, parted lips. I kissed her, and fell back with a cry that was of anguish almost--so poignantly had the sweet, fierce pain of that kiss run through my every fibre. And as I cried out, so too did she, stepping back, her hands suddenly to her face. But the next moment she was peering up at the windows of the house--those inscrutable eyes that looked upon our deed; that looked and of which it was impossible to discern how much they might have seen.