ROBERT BARR Ultimate Collection: 20 Novels & 65+ Detective Stories. Robert Barr

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СКАЧАТЬ and then at the balcony which stood out against the opalescent sky, the tracery of ironwork showing like delicate etching on the luminous background.

      She flushed and dropped her eyes, making no reply.

      "Signorina," repeated the Prince, "I, too, am an exile. Pardon me. It is in remembrance of our lovely city;" and with that he lightly flung the bouquet, which fell at her feet on the floor of the balcony.

      For a few moments the girl did not move nor raise her eyes; then she cast a quick glance through the open window into her room. After some slight hesitation she stooped gracefully and picked up the bouquet.

      "Ah, beautiful Venice!" she murmured with a sigh, still not looking upwards.

      The Prince was delighted with the success of his first advance, which is always the difficult step.

      Evening after evening they sat there later and later. The acquaintance ripened to its inevitable conclusion—the conclusion the Prince had counted on from the first.

      One evening she stood in the darkness with her cheek pressed against the wall at the corner of her balcony nearest to him; he looked over and downward at her.

      "It cannot be. It cannot be," she said, with a frightened quaver in her voice, but a quaver which the Prince recognised, with his large experience, as the tone of yielding.

      "It must be," he whispered down to her. "It was ordained from the first. It has to be."

      The girl was weeping silently.

      "It is impossible," she said at last. "My servant sleeps outside my door. Even if she did not know, your servant would, and there would be gossip—and scandal. It is impossible."

      "Nothing is impossible," cried the Prince eagerly, "where true love exists. I shall lock my door, and Pietro shall know nothing about it. He never comes unless I call him. I will get a rope and throw it to your balcony. Lock you your door as I do mine. In the darkness nothing is seen."

      "No, no," she murmured. "That would not do. You could not climb back again, and all would be lost."

      "Oh, nonsense!" cried the young man eagerly. "It is nothing to climb back." He was about to add that he had done it frequently before, but he checked himself in time.

      For a moment she was silent. Then she said: "I cannot risk your not getting back. It must be certain. If you get a rope—a strong rope—and put a loop in it for your foot, and pass the other end of the rope to me around the staunchest railing of your balcony, I will let you down to the level of my own. Then you can easily swing yourself within reach. If you find you cannot climb back, I can help you, by pulling on the rope and you will ascend as you came down."

      The Prince laughed lightly.

      "Do you think," he said, "that your frail hands are stronger than mine?"

      "Four hands," she replied, "are stronger than two. Besides, I am not so weak as, perhaps, you think."

      "Very well," he replied, not in a mood to cavil about trivialities.

       "When shall it be—to-night?"

      "No; to-morrow night. You must get your rope to-morrow."

      Again the Prince laughed quietly.

      "I have the rope in my room now," he answered.

      "You were very sure," she said softly.

      "No, not sure. I was strong in hope. Is your door locked?"

      "Yes," she replied in an agitated whisper. "But it is still early. Wait an hour or two."

      "Ah!" cried the Prince, "it will never be darker than at this moment, and think, my darling, how long I have waited!"

      There was no reply.

      "Stand inside the window," whispered the Prince. As she did so a coil of rope fell on the balcony.

      "Have you got it?" he asked.

      "Yes," was the scarcely audible reply.

      "Then don't trust to your own strength. Give it a turn around the balcony rail."

      "I have done so," she whispered.

      Although he could not see her because of the darkness, she saw him silhouetted against the night sky.

      He tested the loop, putting his foot in it and pulling at the rope with both hands. Then he put the rope round the corner support of the balcony.

      "Are you sure the rope is strong enough?" she asked. "Who bought it?"

      "Pietro got it for me. It is strong enough to hold ten men."

      His foot was in the loop, and he slung himself from his balcony, holding the rope with both hands.

      "Let it go very gently," he said. "I will tell you when you have lowered enough."

      Holding the end of the rope firmly, the girl let it out inch by inch.

      "That is enough," the Prince said at last; and she held him where he was, leaning over the balcony towards him.

      "Prince Padema," she said to him.

      "Ah!" cried the man with a start. "How did you learn my name?"

      "I have long known it. It is a name of sorrow to our family.

      "Prince," she continued, "have you never seen anything in my face that brought recollection to you? Or is your memory so short that the grief you bring to others leaves no trace on your own mind?"

      "God!" cried the Prince in alarm, seizing the rope above him as if to climb back. "What do you mean?"

      The girl loosened the rope for an inch or two, and the Prince was lowered with a sickening feeling in his heart as he realised his position a hundred feet above the stone street.

      "I can see you plainly," said the girl in hard and husky tones. "If you make an attempt to climb to your balcony, I will at once loosen the rope. Is it possible you have not suspected who I am, and why I am here?"

      The Prince was dizzy. He had whirled gently around in one direction for some time, but now the motion ceased, and he began to revolve with equal gentleness in the other direction, like the body of a man who is hanged.

      A sharp memory pierced his brain.

      "Meela is dead," he cried, with a gasp in his breath. "She was drowned.

       You are flesh and blood. Tell me you are not her spirit?"

      "I cannot tell you that," answered the girl. "My own spirit seemed to leave me when the body of my sister was brought from the canal at the foot of our garden. You know the place well; you know the gate and the steps. I think her spirit then took the place of my own. Ever since that day I have lived only for revenge, and now, Prince Padema, the hour I have waited for is come."

      An agonising cry for help rang through the silent street, but there was no answer to the call.

      "It СКАЧАТЬ