faithfully, let it ache as it would. His
judgment might condemn her, but his
feelings would take her part. He might
preach, warn, reprove her even, but the
reproof would have no sting. She could
accept such reproof, she could embrace it,
for she would know that it came out of
the depth of a great love. He would ask
nothing, ho would expect nothing, he would
resent nothing. He could thrust himself
aside with a sublime magnanimity, and
think only of her.

So she sent the letter.

"What do you write so often to that
man for, cara Veronica?" asked Cesare,
unexpectedly, on the day following that on
which her third letter was despatched.

"So—so often?" she stammered. The
question took her by surprise, and she was
startled by it.

"Yes; it is often, I think. Two letters
in one week. This lying on the table"—
and Cesare took up a pink envelope sealed
and directed—"is the second that I know
of."

"It is kind of you not to recollect that
I told you I had consulted Mr. Plew about
my nervous headaches! I write to him
partly about them; and, besides, he is one
of my oldest and most intimate friends. I
have known him from a child."

"Ah, Benissimo!" replied Cesare,
carelessly. And the next minute he seemed to
have forgotten the whole affair.

But when in the course of two more
days a reply arrived from Mr. Plew, Cesare,
playing with the Spitz dog in one corner of
the sofa, watched his wife when the letter
was delivered to her—watched her while
she opened it and began to read it, and
finally asked, "Is the letter from our good
papa, il reverendissimo Signor Vicario?"

"No; it is from Mr. Plew."

The instant directness of the answer
seemed a little unexpected by him. He
looked up at her for an instant, and then
began to stroke the dog in a more caressing
way than he had used before.

"Where are you going, dearest?" he
asked, presently.

"To my own room."

"To read your letter in peace? May I
see it?"

"See it? See this letter?"

"Yes; is it indiscreet?" he asked, showing
his white teeth in a smile that flashed
for a second and was gone.

For a scarcely perceptible space of time
Veronica hesitated. Then she tossed him
the letter disdainfully.

"You, are as curious as a baby!" she
said.

He took the letter and pored over it
gravely. Then he brought it back to her
and kissed her hand.

"I can't read it," he said. "What a
devil of a writing!"

Veronica had fully reckoned on this
inability of Cesare's. Between his imperfect
knowledge of English and the cramped
characters of Mr. Plew's handwriting, that
looked as though it were expressly invented
and adopted for the purpose of scrawling
the hieroglyphics familiar to our eyes in
doctors' prescriptions, she had been tolerably
sure that Cesare would fail to glean
much information from the letter, let it
contain what it might.

"Why should Cesare have wanted to see
that letter?" she asked herself when she
was alone in her own room. "It must be
from the mere suspicious dislike that
anything, however trifling, should pass
between me and any one else with which he
is not fully acquainted. I have noticed
this trait in him lately—only lately. He
used not to be so in Italy."

Veronica forgot that in Italy Cesare had
been himself her sole possible confidant.

When she had perused Mr. Plew's letter
she felt glad that Cesare had been unable
to decipher it. There was no word in it
which should have made him justly
discontented with Mr. Plew; but there were
many words which would have roused his
anger against his wife.

"The account of your unhappiness cuts
me to the heart," he wrote in one place.
"I am not at all skilful with my pen, nor
able to express what I feel. But I am so
sure you are wrong in giving way to these
morbid feelings; and yet I pity you so
much for having them. I had hoped that
you were at last happy and contented.
Grod knows that there is nothing I would
not give to see you so."

And again: "I am solemnly certain that
your first duty now is to try to gain your
husband's whole confidence and affection.
Remember you chose him freely, and he
loved you when there was no one else,
whom you knew of, to love you!"

And once more: "I wish I was clever
and could write like you. But I cannot.
I can only beg and beseech you to cast off
gloomy and repining thoughts. There is
one thing we can all do- try to be useful
to others. Think of their sorrows more
than your own. Even in my humble way
I find that this soothes my pain of mind as