Year: 1869




pushed the door open, but in the veran-
dab, at the farther end, he caught the flut-
ter of white dress.


What came next ne scarcely knew.
He remembered but more as we recall
a dream than reality-that it was Giulia
who stretched out both hands to greet
him; that when he tried to ask for his
wife, for something in the beautiful face
checked his words, most ineffable com
passion beamed out of the liquid eyes !;
and warned him to prepare for sorrow.
Then mist came over his memory, till
he found himself Lying on couch in the
verandah, and the Marchesa kneeling be-
side him, and watching him with tender,
anxious eyes.


Slowly, but with the sureness with
which one awakens from deep sleep to the
sense of keeu physical pain, his memory
repeated one word-the word which had
robbed him of consciousness.
Dead-lost to him-his Lillian, so full of
bright living beauty when he left her


He looked sternly in the sorrowful eyes
still bent on him.


"Tell ME it all again-when it happen
ed, and how


The Marchesa repeated the sad story
simply and pityingly; her own grief for
her friend was lost in her sympathy for
the bereaved husband.


Lillian had seemed we'll and bright at
first-had even teased her friend for being
dull: but suddenly she had com planned of
headache violent fever had come on
rapidly; the Marchesa had sent for her
own physician, but he, alas was away
from home when the messenger arrived,
and before another doctor could reach the
villa the sufferer had sunk under the vio-
lence of the disease.


The servants had taken fright, and all
except the maid who had waited on Mrs.
Stretton, and helped Giulia to nurse her,
had departed one after another, preferring
to yield up their wages rather than run
the dreaded risk of infection.


Stretton listened with frowning face,
his hands grasping the sofa cushions as if
they offered some power of resistance.
He could not submit to this terrible grief
Why was his life to be turned into night
at the very daybreak of happiEess?"


"When? You have not said when?"


He spoke with an air of sullen doubt.


The sweet, angel-like compassion in her
eyes rebuked him but he did not feel
sorry. What was any suffering he might
infiict compared to the mighty, unutter-
dUiC tudt ildU tuIutQ Ills ucdIL III
the full bounding of joy to a stone? His
Lillian was gone from him, lost to him for
ever Buried by strangers hands and
among strangers He felt thankful then
for the difference of creed which at one
time he had feared might have caused
want of sympathy between them. If
Lillian had not belonged to the Roman
Church, probably the rites of burial might
have hoap denied her alfnUeth0r


The Marchcsa asked him presently If he
would like to see the Padre Anselmo.


Nor He got up from the sofa very
pale and haggard. the ghost of the ardent
man who had come into the sdla so short
while ago.


L will only ask you to take me where
she lies. Iwant no comfort from any living
creature"


Days passed on, and still Gilbert Stret-
ton stayed at the Villa Burcano, and the
Marchesa stayed there too. She told her
self that she could not leave her poor
friends husband in his despairing sorrow :;
besides, she had filled the places of his
runaway servants with her own, so that it
seemed like home to her.


In the depths of her heart she knew
that her only home now was beside Gil
bert StrettOn. Among her Italian friends
she was called cold, naughty, Indifferent !;
to him she was as humble and devoted as
an Indian.


At first he seemed to shrink from her
kind care, and to resist any attempt at
considering him an invalid but the shock
had been too sudden, and his las5itude and
weakness increased every day


Giulia grew alarmed but Mr.. Stretton
steadily refused to consult an Italian
doctor.


"There is nothing really the matter
with me-" he said.


She looked at him earnestly:


my friend, if you saw your changed
face with my eyes you would let me send
for DR.. Litta."


The thrill in her voice attracted him !;
he saw that her eyes were frll of tears.


Once more he took the slender, white
fingers IN his own and put them to his lips,
and this time the hand lay warm and
trembling in his, without an effort to with
draw it.


"You are too anxious about me-" he
said, "worse than l am am injecting
you with my sadness"


He looked up smiling.


There met him in the dark eyes bending
over his couch a passionate glance of love,
and the strange, chill forebOding returned
which his first meeting with the Marchesa
had created. He let Giulia's hand fall,
and pressed his own to his eyes.


The Marchesa moved away, and it
seemed to Stretton that his GOODNESS had
panied her. How devoted her care of him
had been. Lillian even could scarcely have
surpassed it.


Raising himself on his elbow, he looked
round at her. Yes, she was going out of
the sala, her queenly head bent, an inde-
Unable expression of humiliation, at least
so he thought, in her whole figure. He
felt a keen pang Of self-reproach. If dur
ing his illness this Italian had learned to
love him, ought not her devotion to de-
mand his pity and gratitude rather than
his condemnation He had always known
that the temperament of Southern women
were not to be judged by those of their
English sisters; he ought to show her all
the more tender consideration because he
had no love to offer. In few days he
should leave Naples forever; why should
not this short time be made happy to this
woman, who had done so much for him


And meantime, while month had passed
since Lilian's death, and while Gilbert
Stretton had been lingering. broken
spirited and unnerved, at the Villa Bur-
cano all around him had been in a state
of ferment. A rising was expected daily,
and all sorts of unofending travellers were
constantly brought into Naples as Carl
baldian spies. At any other time Giulia
would have been deeply interested. She
detested the Liberal movement, and would
have joined ardently in opposing it; but
Gilbert Stretton was her all now, of life,