And so they walked slowly up and down the moss-grown terrace--alone
in this wonderful tropic night--while he told her the little tragedy
of his life. He told the story simply, with characteristic gaps in
the sequence, which she was left to fill up from her imagination.

"I shall not like Mrs. Harrington," said Eve, when the story was
told. "I am glad that she cannot come much into my life. My father
wanted me to go and stay with her last summer, but I would not leave
him alone, and for some reason he would not accept the invitation
for himself. Do you know, Fitz, I sometimes think there is a past--
some mysterious past--which contained my father and Mrs. Harrington
and a man--the Count de Lloseta."

"I have seen him," put in Fitz, "at Mrs. Harrington's often."

The girl nodded her head with a quaint little assumption of
shrewdness and deep suspicion.

"My father admired him--I do not know why. And pitied him
intensely--I do not know why."

"He was always very nice to me," answered Fitz, "but I never
understood him."

Talking thus they forgot the flight of time. It sometimes happens
thus in youth. And the huge clock in the stable yard striking ten
aroused Eve suddenly to the lateness of the hour.

"I must go," she said. "I am glad you told me about--Luke. I feel