"I asked you once about your life and all that had happened to
you: do you remember?" he inquired. "I have never told you of
my own. Will you let me tell you now?"

"If you do not tell too much and explain yourself away," she
answered.

"It is a story of tragedy, and of folly, recognized too late. I
have never told it to any human being, but I should like you to
understand. It has been an easy life, so far as outer
circumstances go. Until I was eighteen I was lord and dictator
in a household of women, spoiled by mother and sisters alike.
Then came the grief of my life. Oh, I cannot tell it, even to
you!"

The veins stood out on his forehead, and his face was indeed like
the face of a tortured Saint Sebastian. The girl's eyes were
sweet with sympathy, and with something else that he did not look
to see.

"There was a plan made for a journey. I opposed it for some
selfish whim, for I had a scheme of my own. They yielded to me
as they always did, and took my way. That day there was a
terrible accident, and all who were dear to me were killed, while
I, the murderer, was cursed with life. So, when I was eighteen,
my world was made up of four graves in the cemetery at Rome, and
of that memory. Whatever the world may say, I was as guilty of
those deaths as if I had caused them by my own hand."