"Or go away from them," she said.

She was thinking of Robin then, and Fritz.

"Did you know Robin Pierce was here to-day?" she asked.

"Yes. I saw him leave you."

"You saw--but how long have you been watching?"

"A long time."

"Where do you come from?"

He pointed towards the distant lights behind her and before him.

"Opposite. I was to have stayed with Ulford in Casa Felice. I'm staying with him over there."

"With Sir Donald?"

"Yes. He's ill. He wants somebody."

"Sir Donald's afraid of me now," she said, watching him closely. "I told him to live with his memory of me. Will he do that?"

"I think he will. Poor old chap! he's had hard knocks. They've made him afraid of life."

"Why didn't you keep your memory of me?" she said, with sudden nervous anger. "You too? If you hadn't come to-night it would never have been destroyed."

Her extreme tension of the nerves impelled her to an exhibition of fierce bitterness which she could not control. She remembered how he had loved her, with what violence and almost crazy frankness. Why had he come? He might have remembered her as she was.

"I hate you for coming," she said, almost under her breath.

"I don't care. I had to come."

"Why? Why?"

"I told you. I want a saviour. I'm down in the pit. I can't get out. You can see that for yourself."

"Yes," she answered, "I can see that."

"Give me a hand, Viola, and--you'll make me do something I've never done, never been able to do."

"What?" she half whispered.

"Believe there's a God--who cares."

She drew in her breath sharply. Something warm surged through her. It was not like fire. It was more like the warmth that comes from a warm hand laid on a cold one. It surged through her and went away like a travelling flood.

"What are you saying?" she said in a low voice. "You are mad to come here to-night, to say this to me to-night."

"No. It's just to-night it had to be said."

Suddenly she resolved to tell him. He was in the pit. So was she. Well, the condemned can be frank with one another though all the free have to practise subterfuge.

"You don't know," she said, and her voice was quiet now. "You don't know why it was mad of you to come to-night. I'll tell you. I've come out here and I'm not going back again."

He kept his eyes on hers, but did not speak.

"I'm going to stay out here," she said.

And she let her hand fall over the side of the boat till her fingers touched the water.

"No," he said. "You can't do that."

"Yes. I shall do it. I want to hide my face in the water."

"Give me a hand first, Viola."

Again the warmth went through her.

"Nobody else can."

"And you've looked at me!" she said.

There was a profound amazement in her voice.

"It's only when I look at you," he said, "that I know there are stars somewhere beyond the pit's mouth."

"When you look at me--now?"

"Yes."

"But you are blind then?" she said.

"Or are the others blind?" he asked.

Instinctively, really without knowing what she did, she put up her hand to her face, touched it, and no longer felt that it was ugly. For a moment it seemed to her that her beauty was restored.

"What do you see?" she asked. "But--but it's so dark here."

"Not too dark to see a helping hand--if there is one," he answered.

And he stretched out his arm into her boat and took her right hand from the oar it was holding.

"And there is one," he added.

She felt a hand that loved her hand, and there was no veil over her face. How strange that was. How utterly impossible it seemed. Yet it was so. No woman can be deceived in the touch of a hand on hers. If it loves--she knows.

"What are you going to do, Viola?"