Indeed, the stars were now hidden, and the great plane of water was every moment growing more indistinct as we both sat in silence. My ears were strained to catch the dipping of an oar or a voice, but beyond the lapping of the water beneath the boat there was no other sound.
I took the hand of the fair-faced girl at my side and pressed it. In return she pressed mine.
It was the only means by which we could exchange confidences. She whom I had sought through all those months sat at my side, yet powerless to utter one single word.
In the darkness I could not distinguish her countenance distinctly, but I knew that her eyes were turned toward me. I could not speak to her because some unknown villainous hand had deprived her of the sense of hearing. Was not the situation the most tantalizing of any in which a man could possibly be placed?
That face was peerless among the thousands of pretty faces I had seen during my cosmopolitan life at the spas and capitals of Europe. Few men of my own age had, perhaps, seen so much of life as I had; few men, perhaps, had had fewer affairs of the heart. True, I had loved once: what man has not? The object of my affection had been the dark-eyed daughter of an Italian marchesa, who after a violent flirtation which became perilously near matrimony, married a fat Jew twice her age, and went to live in Ferrara. I was disappointed, world-weary, and full of bitter chagrin. Indeed, I had declared to Frank Hutcheson and others of my
