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 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? Giovanni, 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 instant in the little boat. Giovanni, carry me off tonight, 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 struggled against the spell.

"I cannot." he said. "Not yet. There is something 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 Doña Emilia—away from here. 1 am not very heavy."

It seemed as though she expected him to lift her up at once in his two palms. She had lost the notion of all impossibility. Anything could happen on this night of wonder. As he made no movement, she almost cried aloud.