if he could help me. I managed to thank
him and to get to the door. He opened it
for me respectfully, and bowed—he treated
me like a lady to the last! It was evening
when I left the studio in that way. The
next morning I threw up my situation, and
turned my back on Pisa. Now you know
everything."

"Did you hear of the marriage?  or did
you only assume, from what you knew, that
it would take place '?"

"I heard of it about six months ago. A
man came to sing in the chorus at our theatre,
who had been employed some time before at
the grand concert given on the occasion
of the marriage.—But let us drop the
subject now. I am in a fever already with
talking of it. You are in a bad situation
here, my dear— I declare your room is almost
stifling."

"Shall I open the other window ?"

"No: let us go out and get a breath of air
by the river-side. Come! take your hood and
fan—it is getting dark—nobody will see us,
and we can come back here, if you like, in
half an hour."

Mademoiselle Virginie acceded to her
friend's wish, rather reluctantly. They
walked towards the river. The sun was down
and the sudden night of Italy was gathering
fast. Although Brigida did not say another
word on the subject of Fabio or his wife,
she led the way to the bank of the Arno,
on which the young nobleman's palace
stood.

Just as they got near the great door of
entrance, a sedan-chair, approaching in the
opposite direction, was set down before it; and
a footman, after a moment's conference with
a lady inside the chair, advanced to the
porter's-lodge, in the court-yard. Leaving her
friend to go on, Brigida slipped in after the
servant by the open wicket, and concealed
herself in the shadow cast by the great closed
gates.

"The Marchesa Melani, to inquire how the
Contessa d'Ascoli and the infant are, this
evening," said the footman.

"My mistress has not changed at all for
the better, since the morning," answered the
porter. " The child is doing quite well."

The footman went back to the sedan-chair;
then returned to the porter's-lodge.

"The Marchesa desires me to ask if
fresh medical advice has been sent for ? " he
said.

"Another doctor has arrived from Florence
to-day," replied the porter.

Mademoiselle Virginie, missing her friend
suddenly, turned back towards the palace to
look after her, and was rather surprised to
see Brigida slip out of the wicket-gate. There
were two oil-lamps burning on pillars outside
the door-way, and their light glancing on the
Italian's face, as she passed under them,
showed that she was smiling.

CHAPTER V.

"WHILE the Marchesa Melani was making
inquiries at the gate of the palace, Fabio was
sitting alone in the apartment which his wife
usually occupied when she was in health.
It was her favourite room, and had been
prettily decorated, by her own desire, with
hangings in yellow satin, and furniture of the
same colour. Fabio was now waiting in it to
hear the report of the doctors after their
evening visit.

Although Maddalena Lomi had not been
his first love, and although he had married
her under circumstances which are generally
and rightly considered to afford few chances
of lasting happiness in wedded life, still they
had lived together through the one year of
their union, tranquilly, if not fondly. She had
moulded herself wisely to his peculiar
humours, had made the most of his easy disposition,
and, when her quick temper had got the
better of her, had seldom hesitated in her
cooler moments to acknowledge that she had
been wrong. She had been extravagant, it is
true, and had irritated him by fits of
unreasonable jealousy; but these were faults
not to be thought of now. He could only
remember that she was the mother of his child,
and that she lay ill but two rooms away from
him—dangerously ill, as the doctors had
unwillingly confessed on that very day.

The darkness was closing in upon him, and he
took up the hand-bell to ring for lights. When
the servant entered, there was genuine sorrow
in his face, genuine anxiety in his voice, as he
inquired for news from the sick-room. The
man only answered that his mistress was still
asleep; and then withdrew, after first leaving
a sealed letter on the table by his master's
side. Fabio summoned him back into the
room, and asked when the letter had arrived.
He replied that it had been delivered at the
palace two days' since, and that he had
observed it lying unopened on a desk in his
master's study.

Left alone again, Fabio remembered that
the letter had arrived at a time when the
first dangerous symptoms of his wife's illness
had declared themselves, and that he had
thrown it aside after observing the address to
be in a handwriting unknown to him. In his
present state of suspense, any occupation was
better than sitting idle. So he took up the
letter with a sigh, broke the seal, and
turned inquiringly to the name signed at the
end.

It was, "NANINA."

He started and changed colour. "A letter
from her! " he whispered to himself. "Why
does it come at such a time as this?"

His face grew paler and the letter trembled
in his fingers. Those superstitious
feelings which he had ascribed to the nursery
influences of his childhood, when Father Rocco
charged him with them in the studio, seemed
to be overcoming  him now. He hesitated