“Indeed I do,” replied I, “as if I had known her all my life.  I will not stay long;” and I followed him through a small dining-room, also gay with flowers and vines, to a little room which had one side almost wholly of glass and opened on a loggia full of orange-trees and oleanders, geraniums and roses.  I will not describe Dora Maynard’s bed-room.  It was the dainty room of a dainty woman, but spiritualized and individualized and made wonderful, just as her sitting-room was, by a creative touch and a magnetic presence such as few women possess.  I believe that she could not be for twenty-four hours in the barrenest and ugliest room possible, without contriving to diffuse a certain enchantment through all its emptiness.

She looked far more beautiful this morning than she had looked the day before.  I never forgot the picture of her face as I saw it then, lying on the white pillow and turned toward the door, with the eager expression which her waiting for me had given it.  Neither of us spoke for some seconds, and when we did speak we took refuge in commonplaces.  Our hearts were too full—­mine with a sudden and hardly explicable overflow of affection toward this beautiful being whom I had saved from dying; hers with a like affection for me, heightened a thousand fold by the intense love of love and of living that filled her whole soul and made her gratitude to me partake almost of the nature of adoration.  I think it was years before she could see me without recalling the whole scene so vividly that tears would fill her eyes.  Often she would suddenly seize both my hands in hers, kiss them and say, “Oh! but for these dear, strong, brave little hands, where should I be!” And whenever we parted for a length of time she was overshadowed by presentiment.  “I know it is superstitious and silly,” she would say, “but I cannot shake off the feeling that I am safer in the same town with you.  I believe if any harm were to threaten me you would be near.”

But the story I am to tell now is not the story of Dora Maynard’s life after I knew her, nor of our friendship and love for each other, rare and beautiful as they were.  It is the story of her girlhood, and of the strange wood-carving which stood on the gilded table in the bed of purple anemones.

One morning in April, as I climbed the long stone stairs which led to her apartment, I met Anita, the flower-woman who carried flowers to her every day.  Anita looked troubled.

“What is the matter, my Anita?” said I; “is the Signora ill?”

“Ah no, thank the Blessed Virgin!” said Anita; “the dearest, most beautiful of Signoras is well, but I am obliged to tell her to-day that there are no more anemones.  Biagio went yesterday to the farthest corner of the Villa Doria, to a dark shady spot beyond the Dove-Cote, which the strangers know not, hoping to find some; but the heavy rains had beaten them all down—­there is no longer one left.  And the Signora had tears in her eyes when I told her; and she did not care for all the other beautiful flowers; she said none of them could go on the gold table; never yet has the Signora put any flowers on the gold table except the purple anemones,” and real tears stood in old Anita’s eyes.