"I've got to tell you some day, and you may as well know now," she said, with a curious hardness of tone which she had probably acquired from Marten by the trick of association. "You loved my mother, and ought to have married her. If all was nice and providential in the best of all possible worlds, you would have been my father. Oh, you needn't flinch because I say that! If you _were_ my father, I'm sure you wouldn't force me to marry a man I detest. That person who came with me yesterday is the high and mighty Principe del Montecastello. I have to marry him, and I hate him!" Power's face went very pale. His hour had struck. He looked out over a smiling ocean; but the eyes of his soul saw a broken vista of barren hills, snow-crowned and glacier-ribbed, while howling torrents rushed through the depths of ravines choken with the débris of avalanches and rotting pines. His own voice sounded hollow and forlorn in his ears. "In these days no woman need marry a man she hates," he was saying, aware of a dull effort to ward off a waking nightmare by the spoken word. "You know better than that," she retorted, with the bitter logic of youth. "What am I to do? The man I love, and would marry if I could, is poor. He is too honorable to--to---- Oh, I don't know what I mean--only this, that a millionaire's daughter can be bought and sold like any other girl, even a princess, when what men call 'important interests' are at stake." "You say you have chosen another man?" he said brokenly. "Yes, the dearest boy. Oh, Mr. Power, I wish you knew him! I have faith in you. Perhaps you could help--if only for my dear mother's safe." She was crying now; but her streaming eyes sought his with wistful confidence. "Yes. I will help, for your dear mother's sake," he said. "Be brave, and drive away those tears. They--they hurt. I--I saw your mother crying once. Now tell me everything. If I would be of any real assistance, I must know how to shape my efforts." CHAPTER XIX THE SETTLEMENT