This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ... dozen different voices confused counsel. Avice was well known. He chose a bright-faced boy as guide, and dismissed him, happy with a franc, at the gates of the villa named, with a beautiful conservatism, Bella Vista. The gate shut noiselessly behind him, the garden slept about him, whitely lighted by the southern moon. The house lay on a southern slope overlooking the sea, its green shutters closed, though the casements behind them were open. Several were dark, but, from the last three he must pass to reach the porch, squares of yellow light, banded with black by the slots of the partly open shutters, fell on the white stones that paved the terrace. As he passed the first of the squares of light a voice, speaking rapidly in English, arrested his attention. " But, my dear lady, when we came to that arrangement I did not contemplate perpetual exile." Whose voice was that? He could not be sure. The voice that replied was undoubtedly Avice's. " Exile for myself is a thing to which I must submit. I have known that from the first. But I have no wish to condemn you to exile also. Go back to England--as soon as you choose. It is not the first time I have advised it." " I do not go back to England without you. Where you are I must be also." Heriot heard it in dumb amazement. Surely the speaker was Dr. Ledward. "Must, --I repeat it, --if only to prevent an amazing indiscretion such as is bearing fruit to-day." " You mean my--you mean Mr. Maxwell? " His own name sent a shock through Heriot's every nerve. What was he doing? Listening in the silence and the dark to what was clearly not intended for his ears He walked rapidly forward, and set a deep-toned bell clanging in the silent house. With a little cry of what sounded like genuine pleasure, Avice herself...