"Hates you, Veronica! What wild
folly!"

"'No, no, no; it is not wild folly. It is
sober sense," pursued Veronica, speaking
with vehemence, now that she had once
began to reveal the secret thought that
was in her. " I have long guessed it. I
may say that I have long known it. What
love he ever felt for me has been over this
many a day. I always know when people
love me—always. And he hates you too.
He is jealous of you. I have seen his eyes,
when he did not know that I saw them,
under the shadow of his lamp-screen on
the little table. And I believe he set Paul
to watch us. I do!"

The strong conviction in her tone was
not without its effect on Barletti. But he
answered with the confident calmness of
one who is rebutting an obvious absurdity,
and with a slight nodding of his head up
and down: " Well, it is the most original
demonstration of hatred I ever heard of,
to bestow his name and his fortune on
you at the very moment when he is about
to leave you free to enjoy both as you
please. Most people would call such
conduct affectionate and generous."

"Yes. And it is because I know him to
be incapable of either affection or generosity
that I cannot be easy."

"Veronica, that is morbid!"

"Well, you may say what you please,
but I know that man means me no good.
Do you remember what he said last night
as we sat beside his bed? Dio mio! How
it all comes back plainly to me. He said,
' Ah! you are both young, and handsome,
and healthy. How delightful it is to think
of the years of happiness that stretch before
you!' And did you not see the diabolical
sneer he gave? Oh! Cesare, there is some
evil to come. I am sure of it."

She wrung her hands tightly together,
and began to pace quickly up and down
the room.

"Veronica," he said, after a minute's
consideration, " it may be that you do not
much wrong Sir John's nature. And yet
I am convinced you are mistaken in your
conclusions. If he does not care for you
he cares for himself, and the fear of death
is a powerful motive to reparation."

"He does not believe in reparation.
He scoffs at everything. He has no
religion."

"But those are the very people to be
afraid. I have known men who have never
been to mass, or to confession, for twenty
years, turn like soft wax in the hands of
the priests when there came any question
of dying."

"Ah, in your church, perhaps. But with
us it is different."

"And then, don't you see, Veronica, that
the struggle in his mind between evil
promptings, and the desire to save his own
soul, may produce all the strange fluctuations
you observe in his manner?"

She shook her head doubtfully, but she
liked that her vague fears and suspicions
should be combated. She leaned on this man
who loved her. She had been right in her
assertion that she always knew when she
was loved. With whatever motive he had
first sought to make himself pleasing in her
eyes, she was unshakably sure that now, at
all events, he loved her for herself; and
that were she destitute to-morrow he would
not desert her. And then, too, her
apprehensions seemed less alarming now she had
uttered them, than they had appeared while
she brooded over them silently. Perhaps
Cesare was right, and she was wrong after
all! What flaw could there be in her
fortunes? Yes: no doubt Cesare was right!
She was very glad she had spoken to him so
openly. Before they parted, she took his
head between her hands, and pressed her lips
to his forehead. The action was little more
than an expression of the relief to her mind
which his word had brought: and partly it
was the selfish instinctive clinging in peril
to a clasping hand—the clinging of a child,
that knows no compunction in throwing all
its weight of care and fear on to the patient
willing shoulders of those who love it.

The next day about noon, Cesare de'
Barletti was breakfasting in one of the principal
caffès in Naples, when Mr. Frost walked in
and took his seat at a small round table
near him.

"Ah, Mr. Frost! So you are not gone
then?" said Barletti, shaking hands. This
was a ceremony he never omitted with an
Englishman, conceiving that to have done so
would have been as great a solecism in good
manners as to decline the proffered pipe of
a Turk.

"No," returned Mr. Frost. "I am not
gone, as you see. The telegram came after
all. I may be detained here another week
or so. I have not seen you these last days,
prince."

"I have been nowhere— nowhere except
to the house of a sick friend. He is dying
I fancy. Do you remember —— " Barletti
suddenly checked his speech and dropped
his coffee-cup with a clatter that brought