"Cruthers made no reply, not considering himself, of course, as one of the party, and, nodding pleasantly to my companion, joined Woods's table again. "When dinner was over, Diffendorfer put on his hat and coat, handed me my umbrella, and said: "'I'm going home now. Walk along with me?' "It was still raining, the wind rattling the swinging doors of the caffè. I did not answer for a moment. The dinner had left me as much in the dark as ever, and I was trying to make up my mind what to do next. "'Why not stay here and smoke?' I asked. "'No, walk along with me as far as the traghetto, please,' and he laid his hand in a half-pleading way on my arm. "Again that same troubled look in his face that I had seen once before made me alter my mind. I threw on my coat, picked up my umbrella, nodded to the boys, who looked rather anxiously after me, and plunged through the door and out into the storm. "It was the kind of a night that I love,--a regular howler. Most people think the sunshine makes Venice, but they wouldn't think so if they could study it on one of these nights when a nor'easter whirls up out of the Adriatic and comes roaring across the lagoons as if it would swallow up the dear old girl and sweep her into the sea. She don't mind it. She always comes up smiling the next day, looking twice as pretty for her bath, and I'm always twice as happy, for I've seen a whole lot of things I never would have seen in the daylight. The Campanile, for one thing, upside down in the streaming piazza; slashes of colored light from the shop-windows soaking into the rain-pools; and great, black, gloomy shadows choking up alleys, with only a single taper peering out of the darkness like a burglar's lantern. "When we turned to breast the gale--the rain had almost ceased--and struggled on through the Ascensione, a sudden gust of wind whirled my umbrella inside out, and after that I walked on ahead of him, stopping every now and then to enjoy the grandeur of it all, until we reached the traghetto. When we arrived, only one gondola was on duty, the gondolier muffled to his eyes in glistening oilskins, his sou'wester hat tied under his chin. "Once on the other side of the Canal it started in to rain again, and so Diffendorfer held his own umbrella over me until we reached my gate on the Fondamenta San Zorzi, in the rear of my quarters. He stood beside me under the flare of the gas-jets while I fumbled in my pocket for my night-key--I had about decided to invite him in and pump him dry--and then said: "'I live a little way from here; don't go in; come home with me.'