The San Francisco call., 1905-04-30

less kaleidoscope clearness the wall;
of the FOOLS paradise fate was rear
ing, brick by brick.
So the long weeks of convalescence
dropped by like falling leaves. In
spite OF the constrained oath he had
heard on a certain night in his cham
Der, Gordon more than once wondered
grimly what hour a stiletto might enc
it ALL That Teresa guarded we'll, he
realized once with a sudden thrill
when he opened the door of his bed
room in the night to find Tita's great
form stretched asleep across the
threshold.
The master of the casa, meanwhile
was seldom to be seen. When he en-
countered Gordon, it was with snarl-
ing, satiric courtesy bitter. armed
arInistiee. Teresa did not doubt he
had been more than once to Rome,
but what effect his visit might have
on her petition she could not guess
The Contessa Albrizzi was powerful
but he was an influential factor also
If her plea were granted, well ano
good. If not at least she was happy
now. And because she was happy
now, she thrust away, with a woman S
fatuousness, the thought that there
must come time when Gordon would
go.
Trevanion Gordon met but once,
and then with Paolo at the casa en-
trance. A single steady look had hung
between them. The others eyes shift
ed and he passed in. Teresa was with
Gordon at the moment and her hand
had trembled on his arm. She said
nothing, but that night he came upon
Tita in his bedroom, oiling his pocket
pistols-which ne did not wear.
What he had said once as he fought
down the passion of murder in his soul
Ia +, losI tIs..,a 49,
What comes TO me thus, l myself
have beckoned. The Great Mechanism
shall have its way" If TreVanion
then had seemed the Nemesis Of
his past, he seemed doubly SO
now. The vengeance had fallen
just when the cup Of joy was
at his lips-in that one supreme
moment; fate's red reminder that the
moment was not his, but filched from
his own resolve and from Teresa S
peace.
But though he struck not openly,
Gordon was soon to discover that Ire
vanion's hand was unwearied; Shelley
came TO him from Pisa, bringing re-
port Of fresh fictions afioat in the Lon
don press: his pasha-like residence on
the island of Mitylene, and his roman
tic voyages to Sicily and Ithaca. These,
Gordon heard with a new sting, named
as his companion the Contessa Guicci-
oil, who, it was stated in detail, had
been sold to him by her husband.
Not that Gordon cared, for himself.
Save as they might have power to hurt
her, that kiss on the convent hill, when
il sweetened the bitterness that had
fallen in that hour, had burned away
the barb from all such canards. All
that signif5d was Teresa-from whom
he must soon part
Parting: that was the sting, Coiled
in It was a realization that in every
conscious moment since that stabbing
thrust in the forest had been ranking
with growing pain. 1t was, that his
own weakness had made withdrawal
from her life an infinitely crueler thing.
had made his elimination at one time
less possible and more necessitous.
That kiss had changed the universe
for them both For either of them,
bound or free nothing could ever be
the same again,
Sleepless and battling, the night
after Shelley visit, Gordon asked him
self fiercely why, after all. life might
not go on for them still the same. Was
it his fault2 Had he created these con-
ditions that separated them? What did
either he or she owe this old man who
hated her and had tried TO take his
life? Hereafter would not her existence
alone with him in the casa be a. more
intolerable thing than ever? He, Cor
don, could rob him of nothing he now
possessed or had ever possessed. Be-
sides, in time-who could tell how
soon changes must inevitably occur.
In the natural course her husband
would die. Then Teresa would, in truth,
be free.
He paused in his interminable pace
and groaned aloud. What then? For
himself there could be no retracing of
steps. Whatever the issue to him and
TO her, he could not go back to Eng
land. invoke the law and free himself.
When he had quilted London life-the
life of wife and home-had seemed end
ed. He had thought only of Ada, his
child, when he had signed that paper
which put il forever out of his power
alone to break the tie which bound him
To Annabel. Between him and Teresa
reared the lava cold, brazen wall be-
tween two hearts of fire. II cannot!'' he
said. "The old tie holds. 1t is too latei
Because one woman's Ditiless pureness
has ruined me, shall ] ruin another
woman's plying purity?"
So while the dark wore away to dawn
his thought began and ended with the
same desolate cry.
AS the first light came through the
windows he blew out the candles. He
must go-though 1t shut him again
from sight Of Allegra-though it meant
forever.