hours' trip away from the busiest and most congested city of the
world.

On one of the wide benches that were placed here and there on the
descending terraces, in the late hours of an exquisite summer
afternoon, a man and a woman were sitting. They had strolled
slowly from the tennis court, where half-a-dozen young persons
were violently exercising themselves in the sunshine, with the
vague intention of reaching the tea table, on the upper level. But
here, in the clear shade, Isabelle Carter had suddenly seated
herself, and Anthony Pope, her cavalier, had thrown himself on the
steps at her feet.

She was a woman worthy of the exquisite setting, and in her richly
coloured gown, against the clear cream of the marble, the new
green of the trees and lawns, and the brilliant hues of the
flowers, she might well have turned an older head than that of the
boy beside her. Brunette, with smooth cheeks deeply touched with
rose, black eyes, and a warmly crimson mouth that could be at once
provocative and relentless, she glowed like a flower herself in
the sweet and enervating heat of the summer's first warm day. She
wore a filmy gown of a dull cream colour, with daring great
poppies in pink and black and gold embroidered over it; her lacy
black hat, shadowing her clear forehead and smoke-black hair, was
covered with the soft pink flowers. She was the tiniest of women,
and the little foot, that, in its transparent silk stocking and
buckled slipper, was close to Anthony's hand, was like a child's.

The man was twice her size, and as dark as she, earnest, eager,
and to-day with a troubled expression clouding his face. It was to