"Not even when you're my wife?"

"I shall never be your wife!"

"Lady, these are strange things of which you speak. I would rather that, just now, you did not talk only in riddles."

"It is the plain truth--I shall never be your wife."

"How's that? Since my love has brought you back from Como, to tell me that you also love? Though, mind you, I do not stand in positive need of being told. Because, now that I see you face to face, and feel you there so close to me, your heart speaks to mine--I can hear it speaking; I can hear, sweetheart, what it says. So that I know you love me, without depending for the knowledge on the utterance of your lips."

"Still, I shall never be your wife."

"But why, sweetheart, but why?"

"Because--I am a wife already."

CHAPTER X

[THE TALE WHICH WAS TOLD]