when the curtains before one of the windows behind her suddenly stirred, and an eager face peered through between them. The slight sound attracted her, and she turned quickly with a low exclamation of fear. Next, instant, however, she sprang up from the piano with a glad cry, for the man who had thus secretly entered was none other than Charles Armytage.
“You, Nino!” she gasped, pale and trembling, holding aloof from him in the first moments of her surprise.
“Yes,” he replied in a low, intense tone, standing before her in hat and overcoat. “I came here to see the Doctor, but hearing your well-remembered voice outside, and finding the window unfastened, came in. You—you do not welcome me,” he added with disappointment. “Why are you here?”
“Welcome you!” she echoed. “You, who are in my thoughts every day, every hour, every moment; you who, by leaving me, have crushed all hope, all life from me, Nino! Ah! no; I—I welcome you. But forgive me; I never expected that we should meet in this house, of all places.”
“Why?”
She hesitated. Her fingers twitched nervously.
“Because—well, because you ought not to come here,” she answered ambiguously. She remembered Nenci’s covert threat, and knew well what risks her lover ran. He was in deadly peril, and only she herself could shield him.
“I don’t understand you,” he exclaimed. “I have for the past month searched everywhere for you. You left the hotel and disappeared; I have made inquiries in Livorno and in Florence, believing you had returned to Italy, and here to-night, as I passed across the lawn, I heard your voice, and have now found you.”
“Why?” she inquired, her trembling hand still upon the piano. “Is not all our love now of the past? I am unworthy of you, Nino, and I told you so honestly. I could not deceive you further.”
“Heaven knows!” he cried, “you deceived me enough. You have never even told me your real name.”