At last Ivor got up and went to the window, drawing the back of his hand across his eyes, and looked out on the drenched gardens, where orange-trees and palms were still quivering in the half-spent blast and the hail lay in great stones like lumps of sugar on the sunlit grass. Then he turned back, read the papers carefully, and silently asked for the pen and signed, his signature being duly attested by de Konski, who gave him one paper and kept the other. "Now you are free," the Anarchist said, shutting up the pen and pocketing one paper. "Yes, free," repeated Ivor, like a man in a dream. Chapter XVIII The Only Hope The storm had become so furious that the driver, after taking Ermengarde up from Rumpelmayer's, insisted on putting in for shelter under the crowded _porte cochère_ of the nearest hotel. "We might as well have stayed at Rumpelmayer's, after all," she murmured, the wretchedness evoked by reading the publisher's parcel rushing back upon her at the first dull moment. Rumpelmayer's bon-bons were pleasant, and several interesting glimpses of human nature had been given her there at the little tables which were unusually thronged for the time of day on account of the storm.--"It was at least warm at Rumpelmayer's. And what of Villa Gilardoni, Miss Somers?" "Oh, Villa Gilardoni! What _will_ you think of me, dear Mrs. Allonby? My cousin began talking of--family matters; they were absorbing; time somehow slipped away, and the storm rushed up so suddenly--it was impossible to stand against it----" "And so 'the hobby-horse, the hobby-horse, was forgot'? But it was too kind of you even to propose this fag on my behalf, much less to try to carry it out. And yet--you are looking very tired, dear Miss Somers." "I am not tired," she replied hastily; "I am exhausted. I--oh! these storms upset one's nerves." "Which storms?" Ermengarde wondered, and came to the conclusion that nothing merely meteorological had caused this upset. Could it be remorse? or was it the connexion by marriage? How much easier, simpler, and sweeter life would be were there no men in the world, she reflected, though, like other Utopias and earthly paradises, she thought it might be just a trifle dull. And who knew that, not only man, but even the devil himself might have his uses in the economy of things? The latter supposition she prudently confided to the secrecy of her own breast, while murmuring sympathetic common-places to Agatha, until such time as it pleased the driver to brave the abating fury of the storm, and take them through the drenched town to the sheltered road under the plane-trees, and so to the foot of the ridge where there was nothing for it but to walk or ride up on donkeys and mules.