"What has he been to you?" I demanded.
She answered with a gesture, pathetic but easily translatable. It was enough for me. I understood. In that moment I became a woman without illusions. Without looking at the prince I entered the carriage and closed the door in his face. He stormed, he pleaded, he lied. I was of stone. There was a scene. He was low enough to turn upon the poor woman and strike her across the face with his gloves. Even had I loved him, that would have been the end of the romance. I ordered the driver to take me home. There would be no wedding at the church that day. There was a great scandal. Every one took up the prince's cause, with the exception of the king. But my determination was not to be moved.
The prince was almost bankrupt. He had squandered the liberal fortune left him independently of the will. He had sold to the Jews half of the fortune he expected to get after marrying me. He had not the slightest affection for me; he was desperate and wanted the money. How old and wise I became during that ride home from the magistrate's! The prince called, but I was not at home to him. He wrote many times, but I replied to none of his letters. He struck but one string; I was foolish to let a little peccadillo of bachelorhood stand in the way; all men were the same; the position I took was absurd. I never answered. I returned to Venice. I have seen him but twice since; once at Monte Carlo and that night at the Villa Ariadne. How he begged, schemed, plotted, and manoeuvered to regain my favor! But I knew now. I vowed he should never have a penny; it should all go to the crown.
When at length he found that I was really serious, he became base in his tactics. He was the one who was wronged. He gave life to such rumors among those I knew that soon I found doors closed to me which had always been open. No Italian woman could see the matter from my point of view. I was an American for all that my mother was a Venetian, therefore I was wrong.
So great was this man's vanity that he truly believed that all he had to do was to meet me face to face to overcome my objections! I have already told you that my impulses are as mysterious to me as to others. Why I went to the Villa Ariadne is not to be explained. I do not know.... A comic opera singer! But I shall always love those light-hearted companions, who were cheerful under misfortune, who accepted each new calamity as a jest by the Great Dramatist. Perhaps the truth is, this last calamity was brought about by my desire to aid them without letting them know who I was. I have committed many foolish acts, but innocent and hurtless. To you I have been perfectly frank. From the first I warned you; and many times I have given you hurts which recoiled upon my own head. But all for your good. I wanted you to be clear of the tangle. There! That is all. There is no more mystery concerning Sonia Hilda Grosvenor.
And so the letter ended. There was not a word regarding any future meeting; there was nothing to read between the lines. A great loneliness surged over Hillard. Was this, then, really the end? No! He struck the letter sharply on his palm. No, this should not be the end. He would wait here in Florence till the day of doom. He would waste no time in seeking her, for he knew that if he sought he would not find.
Day after day dragged through the hours, and Florence grew thinned and torrid. Sometimes he rode past the Villa Ariadne, but he never stopped. He could not bring himself to enter those confines again alone.
In the meantime he had received a cable from Merrihew, stating that he and Mrs. Merrihew would be at home after September. He read the line many times. Good old Dan! He was right; it took patience and persistence to win a woman.
It was in the middle of June that, one afternoon, the concierge handed him a telegram. It contained but three words: