Rita, much too agitated to expect anything but a sleepless night, had not the courage to get into bed.  She thought she would remain on the sofa before the fire and try to compose herself with a book.  As she had no dressing-gown with her she put on her long fur coat over her night-gown, threw some logs on the fire, and lay down.  She didn’t hear the slightest noise of any sort till she heard me shut the door gently.  Quietness of movement was one of Therese’s accomplishments, and the harassed heiress of the Allegre millions naturally thought it was her sister coming again to renew the scene.  Her heart sank within her.  In the end she became a little frightened at the long silence, and raised her eyes.  She didn’t believe them for a long time.  She concluded that I was a vision.  In fact, the first word which I heard her utter was a low, awed “No,” which, though I understood its meaning, chilled my blood like an evil omen.

It was then that I spoke.  “Yes,” I said, “it’s me that you see,” and made a step forward.  She didn’t start; only her other hand flew to the edges of the fur coat, gripping them together over her breast.  Observing this gesture I sat down in the nearest chair.  The book she had been reading slipped with a thump on the floor.

“How is it possible that you should be here?” she said, still in a doubting voice.

“I am really here,” I said.  “Would you like to touch my hand?”

She didn’t move at all; her fingers still clutched the fur coat.

“What has happened?”

“It’s a long story, but you may take it from me that all is over.  The tie between us is broken.  I don’t know that it was ever very close.  It was an external thing.  The true misfortune is that I have ever seen you.”

This last phrase was provoked by an exclamation of sympathy on her part.  She raised herself on her elbow and looked at me intently.  “All over,” she murmured.

“Yes, we had to wreck the little vessel.  It was awful.  I feel like a murderer.  But she had to be killed.”

“Why?”

“Because I loved her too much.  Don’t you know that love and death go very close together?”

“I could feel almost happy that it is all over, if you hadn’t had to lose your love.  Oh, amigo George, it was a safe love for you.”

“Yes,” I said.  “It was a faithful little vessel.  She would have saved us all from any plain danger.  But this was a betrayal.  It was—­never mind.  All that’s past.  The question is what will the next one be.”

“Why should it be that?”

“I don’t know.  Life seems but a series of betrayals.  There are so many kinds of them.  This was a betrayed plan, but one can betray confidence, and hope and—­desire, and the most sacred . . .”

“But what are you doing here?” she interrupted.