"In that I receive you I forgive you, sir," she said. He glanced toward De Pretis, who seemed absorbed in some music at the piano and was playing over bits of an accompaniment. She understood, and moved slowly to a window at the other end of the great room, standing among the curtains. He placed himself in the embrasure. She looked at him long and earnestly, as if finally reconciling the singer with the man she had known so long. She found him changed, as I had, in a short time. His face was sterner and thinner and whiter than before, and there were traces of thought in the deep shadows beneath his eyes. Quietly observing him, she saw how perfectly simple and exquisitely careful was his dress, and how his hands bespoke that attention which only a gentleman gives to the details of his person. She saw that, if he were not handsome, he was in the last degree striking to the eye, in spite of all his simplicity, and that he would not lose by being contrasted with all the dandies and courtiers in Rome. As she looked, she saw his lip quiver slightly, the only sign of emotion he ever gives, unless he loses his head altogether, and storms, as he sometimes does.
"Signorina," he began, "I have come to tell you a story; will you listen to it?"
"Tell it me," said she, still looking in his face.
"There was once a solitary castle in the mountains, with battlement and moat both high and broad. Far up in a lonely turret dwelt a rare maiden, of such surpassing beauty and fairness that the peasants thought she was not mortal, but an angel from heaven, resting in that tower from the doing of good deeds. She had flowers up there in her chamber, and the seeds of flowers; and as the seasons passed by, she took from her store the dry germs, and planted them one after another in a little earth on the window-sill. And the sun shone on them and they grew, and she breathed upon them and they were sweet. But they withered and bore no offspring, and fell away, so that year by year her store became diminished. At last there was but one little paper bag of seed left, and upon the cover was written in a strange character, 'This is the Seed of the Thorn of the World.' But the beautiful maiden was sad when she saw this, for she said 'All my flowers have been sweet, and now I have but this thing left, which is a thorn!' And she opened the paper and looked inside, and saw one poor little seed all black and shrivelled. Through that day she pondered what to do with it, and was very unhappy. At night she said to herself, 'I will not plant this one; I will throw it away rather than plant it.' And she went to the window, and tore the paper, and threw out the little seed into the darkness."