She laid her troubled, tear-stained face upon his shoulder.
"It is wrong of me, Leonardo. Yet, if you will promise me to say farewell, and farewell only——"
"Be it so! I promise!"
"Well, then, each night we have walked past the Marina, and home by the mountain road. It is a long way round and it is lonely; but we have Pietro with us, and on these moonlight nights the view is like fairy-land."
"And will you come that way home to-night, after the concert?"
"Yes."
"It is good."
"You will remember your promise, Leonardo," she said anxiously.
"I will remember," he answered. "And, Margharita, since this is to be our farewell, I have something to say to you also, before I pass away from your life into my exile. In Rome I was told a thing which for a moment troubled me. I say for a moment, because it was for a moment only that I believed it. The man who told me was my friend, or he would have answered to me for it, as for an insult. Shall I tell you, Margharita, what this thing was?"
Her face was troubled, and her eyes were downcast. The Sicilian watched her confusion with darkening brows. Since she made no answer, he continued: