THE NINTH MAN
my lady. 'Where will you have her hide her shame?'
" 'Where it will trouble her no more,' cried my lord through his blackness, and he pointed to that doorway."
I looked where Father Giorgio pointed, and shivered, for our town is built on a hill, scrambling to its summit no one knows how. A mountain stream cleaves the town in two, cold as ice in midsummer. The garden of the Contis sits with its feet in the water, while that door leads to a narrow corridor and the corridor to a bridge, and thence is a narrow stretch to the town. Far below the bridge runs the silent stream, and many have gone through that door who have never returned.
" 'You come to me for counsel,' he cried, 'and to know where to hide your shame. Now hide it deep and hide it fast,' and he spoke in a tone that no man can resist. He opened the door and bowed low.
"My lady stepped up to him, and, 'My lord,' she cried, 'my lord!' He swept her away as though she were paper.
" 'Pass, Madonna,' said he.
"And the girl with the cloak around her
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