Venice."

"He did not destroy them," cried Lucia. "He has helped to
preserve those in our palace."

"One of them, at any rate," said I, as I stooped and kissed her
hand.

This was the way, my friends, in which I lost my ear. Lorenzo
was found stabbed to the heart in the Piazza of St. Mark within
two days of the night of my adventure. Of the tribunal and its
ruffians, Matteo and three others were shot, the rest banished
from the town.

Lucia, my lovely Lucia, retired into a convent at Murano after
the French had left the city, and there she still may be, some
gentle lady abbess who has perhaps long forgotten the days when
our hearts throbbed together, and when the whole great world
seemed so small a thing beside the love which burned in our
veins. Or perhaps it may not be so. Perhaps she has not
forgotten.

There may still be times when the peace of the cloister is broken
by the memory of the old soldier who loved her in those distant
days. Youth is past and passion is gone, but the soul of the
gentleman can never change, and still Etienne Gerard would bow
his grey head before her and would very gladly lose his other ear
if he might do her a service.