everything! It was made for you! But what could

stand between you and me? What? Tell me!" she repeated, without impatience, in superb assurance. "Your dead mother," he said, very low. "Ah! . . . Poor mother! She has always . . . She is a saint in heaven now, and I cannot give you up to her. No, Giovanni. Only to God alone. You were mad but it is done. Oh! what have you done? Gio- vanni, my beloved, my life, my master, do not leave me here in this grave of clouds. You cannot leave me now! You must take me away at once this in- stant in the little boat. Giovanni, carry me off to- night, from my fear of Linda's eyes, before I have to look at her again." She nestled close to him. The slave of the San Tome silver felt the weight as of chains upon his limbs, a pressure as of a cold hand upon his lips. He strug- gled against the spell. "I cannot." he said. "Not yet. There is some- thing that stands between us two and the freedom of the world." She pressed her form closer to his side with a subtle and naive instinct of seduction. "You rave, Giovanni my lover!" she whispered engagingly. " What can there be? Carry me off in thy very hands to Dona Emilia away from here. 1 am not very heavy." It seeine<l as though she expected him to lift her up n Ins two palms. She had lost the notion of all impossibility. Anything could happen on this night of wonder. As he made no movement, she al-

most cried aloud: