“I have thought,” she was saying when I came to myself, “all the night of what you told me of your home on the hills.  It must be happiness of the greatest and most perfect, to be alone there with the voices of nature—­the birds crying over the heather and the cattle in the fields.”

“Good enough,” I said, “it is for us moorland folk who know nothing better than each other’s society—­the bleating sheep to take us out upon the hills and the lamp-light streaming through the door as we return homewards.”

“There is nothing better in this world!” said the Countess with emphasis.

But just then I was not at all of that mind.

“Ah, you think so,” said I, “because you do not know the hardness of the life and its weary sameness.  It is better to be free to wander where you will, in this old land of enchantments, where each morning brings a new joy and every sun a clear sky.”

“You are young—­young,” she said, shaking her head musingly, “and you do not know.  I am old.  I have tried many ways of life, and I know.”

It angered me thus to hear her speak of being old.  It seemed to put her far from me I remembered afterwards that I spoke with some sharpness, like a petulant boy.

“You are not so much older than I, and a great lady cannot know of the hardness of the life of those who have to earn their daily bread.”

She smiled in an infinitely patient way behind her eyelashes.

“Douglas,” she said, “I have earned my living for more years than the difference of age that is between us.”

I looked at her in amazement, but she went on—­

“In my brother’s country, which is Russia, we are not secure of what is our own, even for a day.  We may well pray there for our daily bread.  In Russia we learn the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer.”

“But have you not,” I asked, “great possessions in Italy?”

“I have,” the Countess said, “an estate here that is my own, and many anxieties therewith.  Also I have, at present, the command of wealth—­which I have never yet seen bring happiness.  But for all, I would that I dwelt on the wide moors and baked my own bread.”

I did not contradict her, seeing that her heart was set on such things; nevertheless, I knew better than she.

“You do not believe!” she said suddenly, for I think from the first she read my heart like a printed book.  “You do not understand!  Well, I do not ask you to believe.  You do not know me yet, though I know you.  Some day you will have proof!”

“I believe everything you tell me,” I answered fervently.

“Remember,” she said, lifting a finger at me—­“only enough and not too much.  Tell me what is your idea of the place where I could be happy.”

This I could answer, for I had thought of it.

“In a town of clear rivers and marble palaces,” I answered, “where there are brave knights to escort fair ladies and save them from harm.  In a city where to be a woman is to be honoured, and to be young is to be loved.”