At first, unable to realise that the words were falling from his lips, she stood as one dazed; then came the thought, and in the next instant the delicious certainty, that there had been a misunderstanding; that Mario, of his will, had never surrendered her to another, that he had never put a frigid sentiment of justice above his love for her. But before she could speak he had misread in her first look of bewilderment and in her quick-going breath an acknowledgment of what he hated to believe. He gave voice to his anger in phrases that wronged her immeasurably, yet thrilled her with rapture, for they proved that somehow he had been cheated of her, that he had never put her away, and that after all his was a great passion crying out in glorious wrath. “It was a hideous crime to wreck two lives,” he exclaimed. “It has wrecked your life; that is the penalty. When you bartered for money all that----” “Mario, stop,” she said, softly, touching his arm, while her face lit up in anticipation of the joyous message she had for him. “We are the victims of a misunderstanding.” “Are you not his wife?” he demanded, puzzled by her smile and sparkling eyes. “Yes; but only in the view of the world,” she told him, yielding to an impulse, and glad in the consciousness that this was so. “Even that I should not have been,” she went on, “but for a message that bore your name. The will of others did not prevail. Ah, no! When I became the wife of Antonio Tarsis it was the will, as I believed, of Mario Forza.” “Hera!” he exclaimed. “Of what message do you speak?” “Your despatch from Rome,” she answered, blissful in the conviction that it was not his. “I sent no message from Rome. I have never sent you a message.” Hera laughed for sheer joy. “Nor did you receive one from me the night you went away,” she surmised, seeing the hand of Tarsis in it all. “Yes; I received a message from you.” “Ah, where?” “At Rome. It was handed to me by the station-master on my arrival.” “And you made no answer to that?” “None was required. It had only three words; but those were enough to make me happy indeed, for they dispelled all fear that your strength might fail at the last.” “And those three words?” “You said, ‘All is well.’” “No; it was not that,” she laughed; and with a gaiety which he understood now, and shared as well, she told him of the message despatched at the request of Tarsis, asking what she should do--keep or break her engagement of marriage. In that moment they forgot the trickery by which he had gained her hand. Enough to know that each in spirit had been true to the promise given and taken in the monastery; that, however great the disaster to their hopes, the power of their love had never lessened. She would have told him more of the events in Villa Barbiondi after his departure for Rome but for Donna Beatrice, who came toward them, her face a picture of vexation.