I

'Would'st thou fight?Would'st kill? would'st thou behold rivers of blood?Great heaps of gold? white herds of captive women?Slaves? other, and far other spoils? Would'st thouBid marble breathe? Would'st thou set up a temple?Would'st fashion an immortal hymn? Would'st (hearken,Hearken, O youth, hearken!)—would'st thou divinelyLove?'

He smiled faintly to himself. 'Whom should I love?—Art?—a woman?—what woman?' Elena seemed far removed from him, lost to him, a stranger—dead. The others—stillfurther off, dead for evermore. Therefore he was free. But why renew a pursuit so useless and so perilous? Why stretch out his hand again towards the tree of knowledge? 'The tree of knowledge has been plucked—all's known!' as Byron said in Don Juan. What he desired, at the bottom of his heart, was to give himself freely, gratefully to some higher and purer being. But where to find that being was the question.

Truly his salvation in the future lay rather in the practice of caution, prudence, sagacity. His tone of mind seemed to him admirably expressed in a sonnet of a contemporary poet, whom, from a certain affinity of literary tastes and similar æsthetic education, he particularly affected—

'I am as one who lays himself to restUnder the shadow of a laden tree;Above his head hangs the ripe fruit, and heIs weary of drawing bow or arbalest.He shakes not the fair bough that lowliestDroops, neither lifts he hand, nor turns to see;But lies, and gathers to him indolentlyThe fruits that drop into his very breast.In that juiced sweetness, over-exquisite,He bites not deep; he fears the bitterness;Yet sets it to his lips, that he may smell,Sucks it with pleasure, not with greediness,And he is neither grieved nor glad at it.This is the ending of the parable.'

'I am as one who lays himself to restUnder the shadow of a laden tree;Above his head hangs the ripe fruit, and heIs weary of drawing bow or arbalest.

He shakes not the fair bough that lowliestDroops, neither lifts he hand, nor turns to see;But lies, and gathers to him indolentlyThe fruits that drop into his very breast.

In that juiced sweetness, over-exquisite,He bites not deep; he fears the bitterness;Yet sets it to his lips, that he may smell,

Sucks it with pleasure, not with greediness,And he is neither grieved nor glad at it.This is the ending of the parable.'

Art! Art! She was the only faithful mistress—forever young—immortal; there was the Fountain of all pure joys, closed to the multitude but freely open to the elect; that was the precious Food which makes a man like unto a god! How could he have quaffed from other cups after having pressed his lips to that one?—how have followed after other joys when he had tasted that supreme one?

'But what if my intellect has become decadent?—if myhand has lost its cunning? What if I am no longerworthy?' He was seized with such panic at the thought, that he set himself wildly to find some immediate means of proving to himself the irrational nature of his fears. He would instantly compose some difficult verses, draw a figure, engrave a plate, solve some problem of form. Well—and what then? Might not the result be entirely fallacious? The slow decay of power may be imperceptible to the possessor—that is the terrible thing about it. The artist who loses his genius little by little is unaware of his progressive feebleness, for as he loses his power of production he also loses his critical faculty, his judgment. He no longer perceives the defects of his work—does not know that it is mediocre or bad. That is the horror of it! The artist who has fallen from his original high estate is no more conscious of his failings than the lunatic is aware of his mental aberration.

Andrea was seized with terror. Better—far better be dead! Never, as at this moment, had he so fully grasped the divine nature of thatgift, never had thesparkof genius appeared to him so sacred. His whole being was shaken to its foundations by the mere suggestion that that gift might be destroyed, that spark extinguished. Better to die!

He lifted his head and shook off his inertia, then he went down to the park and walked slowly under the trees, unable to form a definite plan. A light breeze rippled through the tree tops, now and again the leaves rustled as if a band of squirrels were passing through them; patches of blue sky gleamed between the branches like eyes beneath their lids. Arrived at a favourite spot of his, a sort of tinylucuspresided over by a four-fronted Hermes plunged in quadruple meditation, he stopped and seated himself on the grass, with his back against the pedestal of the statue and his face turned to the sea. Before him the tree-trunks, straight but of uneven height, like the pipes of the great god Pan, intercepted his view of the sea; all around him the acanthus spread the exquisite grace of its foliage, symmetrical as the capitals of Callimachus.

He thought of the words of Salamis in theStory of the Hermaphrodite,

'Noble acanthus, in the woods of EarthTokens of peace, high-flowering coronals,Of most pure form; O ye, the slender basketThat Silence weaves with light, untroubled handTo gather up the flowers of woody dreams,What virtue have ye poured on this fair youthOut of those dusky and sweet-smelling leaves?Naked he sleeps; his arm supports his head.'

Other lines came back to him, and yet others—a riot of verse. His soul was filled with the music of rhymes and rhythmic measures. He was overjoyed; coming to him thus spontaneously and unexpectedly, this poetic agitation caused him inexpressible happiness. And he gave ear to the music, delighting himself in rich imagery, in rare epithets, in the luminous metaphors, the exquisite harmonies, the subtle refinements which distinguished his metrical style and the mysterious artifices of the endecasyllabic verse learned from the admirable poets of the fourteenth century, and more especially from Petrarch. Once more the magic spell of versification subjugated his soul, and he felt the full force of the sentiment of a contemporary poet—Verse is everything!

A perfect line of verse is absolute, immutable, deathless. It encloses a thought as within a clearly marked circle which no force can break; it belongs no more to the poet, it belongs to all and yet to none, as do space, light, all things intransitory and perpetual. When the poet is about to bring forth one of these deathless lines he is warned by a divine torrent of joy which sweeps over his soul.

Andrea half closed his eyes to prolong this delicious tremor which with him was ever the forerunner of inspiration, and more especially of poetic inspiration, and he determined in a moment upon the metrical form into which he would pour his thoughts, like wine into a cup—the sonnet.

While composing Andrea studied himself curiously. It was long since he had made verses. Had this interval of idlenessbeen harmful to his technical capacities? It seemed to him that the lines, rising one by one out of the depths of his brain, had a new grace. The consonance came of itself, and ideas were born of the rhymes. Then suddenly some obstacle would intercept the flow, a line would rebel and the whole verse would be displaced like a shaken puzzle; the syllables would struggle against the constraint of the measure; a musical and luminous word which had taken his fancy had to be excluded by the severity of the rhythm, do what he would to retain it, and the verse was like a medal which has turned out imperfect through the inexperience of the caster, who has not calculated the proper quantity of metal necessary for filling the mould. With ingenious patience he poured the metal back into the crucible and began all over again. Finally the verse came out full and clear, and the whole sonnet lived and breathed like a free and perfect creature.

Thus he composed—now slow, now fast—with a delight never felt before. As the day grew, the sea cast luminous darts between the trees as between the columns of a jasper portico. Here Alma Tadema would have depicted a Sappho with hyacinthine locks, seated at the foot of the marble Hermes, singing to a seven-stringed lyre and surrounded by a chorus of maidens with locks of flame, all pallid and intent, drinking in the pure harmony of the verses.

Having accomplished the four sonnets, he heaved a sigh and proceeded to recite them silently but with inward emphasis. Then he wrote them on the quadrangular pedestal of the Hermes, one on each surface in the following order—

'Four-fronted Hermes, to thy four-fold senseHave these my marvellous tidings been made known?Suave spirits, singing on their way, have flownForth from my heart, light-hearted; and from thenceHave cast forth every foul intelligence,And every foul stream dammed, and overthrownThe old unguarded bridges, stone by stone,And quenched the flame of my impenitence.Singing, the spirits ascend; I know the voice,The hymn; and, inextinguishable and vast,Delighting laughters from my heart arise.Pale, but a king, I bid my soul rejoiceTo hearken my heart's laughter, as at lastLow in the dust the conquered evil lies.

'Four-fronted Hermes, to thy four-fold senseHave these my marvellous tidings been made known?Suave spirits, singing on their way, have flownForth from my heart, light-hearted; and from thence

Have cast forth every foul intelligence,And every foul stream dammed, and overthrownThe old unguarded bridges, stone by stone,And quenched the flame of my impenitence.

Singing, the spirits ascend; I know the voice,The hymn; and, inextinguishable and vast,Delighting laughters from my heart arise.

Pale, but a king, I bid my soul rejoiceTo hearken my heart's laughter, as at lastLow in the dust the conquered evil lies.

The glad soul laughs, because its loves have fled,Because the conquered evil bites the dustWhich into intertangled fires had thrust,As into fiery thickets, feet now ledInto the circle human sorrows tread;It leaves the treacherous labyrinths of lust,Where the fair pagan monsters lure the just,In hyacinth robes, a novice, garmented.Now may no Sphinx with golden nails ensnare,No Gorgon freeze it out of snaky folds,No Siren lull it on a sleepy coast;But, at the circle's summit, see, a fairWhite woman, in the act of worship, holdsIn her pure hands the sacrificial Host.

The glad soul laughs, because its loves have fled,Because the conquered evil bites the dustWhich into intertangled fires had thrust,As into fiery thickets, feet now led

Into the circle human sorrows tread;It leaves the treacherous labyrinths of lust,Where the fair pagan monsters lure the just,In hyacinth robes, a novice, garmented.

Now may no Sphinx with golden nails ensnare,No Gorgon freeze it out of snaky folds,No Siren lull it on a sleepy coast;

But, at the circle's summit, see, a fairWhite woman, in the act of worship, holdsIn her pure hands the sacrificial Host.

Beyond all harm, all ambush, and all hate,Tranquil of face, and strong at heart, she stands,And knows till death, and scorns, and understandsAll evil things that on her passage wait.Thou hast in ward and keeping every gate,The winds breathe sweetness at thy sweet commands,Might'st thou but take, when with these restless handsI lay at thine untroubled feet my fate!Even now there shines before me in thy meekAnd holy hands the Host, like to a sun.Have I attained, have I then paid the price?She, that is favourable to all that seek,Lifting the Host, declares:Now is begunAnd ended the eternal sacrifice!

Beyond all harm, all ambush, and all hate,Tranquil of face, and strong at heart, she stands,And knows till death, and scorns, and understandsAll evil things that on her passage wait.

Thou hast in ward and keeping every gate,The winds breathe sweetness at thy sweet commands,Might'st thou but take, when with these restless handsI lay at thine untroubled feet my fate!

Even now there shines before me in thy meekAnd holy hands the Host, like to a sun.Have I attained, have I then paid the price?

She, that is favourable to all that seek,Lifting the Host, declares:Now is begunAnd ended the eternal sacrifice!

For I, she saith,am the unnatural Rose,I am the Rose of Beauty. I instilThe drunkenness of ecstasy, I fillThe spirit with my rapture and repose.Sowing with tears, sorrowful still are thoseThat with much singing gather harvest still.After long sorrow, this my sweetness willBe sweeter than all sweets thy spirit knows.So be it, Madonna; and from my heart outburstThe blood of tears, flooding all mortal things,And the immortal sorrow be yet whole;Let the depths swallow me, let there as at firstBe darkness, so I see the glimmeringsOf light that rain on my unconquered soul!

For I, she saith,am the unnatural Rose,I am the Rose of Beauty. I instilThe drunkenness of ecstasy, I fillThe spirit with my rapture and repose.

Sowing with tears, sorrowful still are thoseThat with much singing gather harvest still.After long sorrow, this my sweetness willBe sweeter than all sweets thy spirit knows.

So be it, Madonna; and from my heart outburstThe blood of tears, flooding all mortal things,And the immortal sorrow be yet whole;

Let the depths swallow me, let there as at firstBe darkness, so I see the glimmeringsOf light that rain on my unconquered soul!

Diexii. Septembrismdccclxxxvi.'

Schifanoja was situated on the heights at that point where the chain of hills, after following the curving coast line, took a landward bend and sloped away towards the plain. Notwithstanding that it had been built in the latter half of the eighteenth century—by the Cardinal Alfonso Carafa d'Ateleta—the villa showed a certain purity of architectural design. It was a square building of two stories, with arched colonnades alternating with the apartments, which imparted to the whole edifice a look of lightness and grace. It was a real summer palace, open on all sides to the breath of the sea. At the side towards the sloping gardens, a wide hall opened on to a noble double flight of steps leading to a platform like a vast terrace, surrounded by a stone balustrade and adorned by two fountains. At either end of this terrace, other flights of steps interrupted by more terraces led by easy stages almost to the sea, affording a full view from the level ground of their seven-fold windings through superb verdure and masses of roses. The special glories of Schifanoja were its cypresses and its roses. Roses were there of every kind and for every season, enough 'pour en tirer neuf ou dix muytz d'eaue rose' as the poet of theVergier d'honneurwould have said. The cypresses, sharp-pointed and sombre, more hieratic than the Pyramids, more enigmatic than the obelisks, were in no respect inferior either to those of the Villa d'Este, or the Villa Mondragone or any of the giants growing round the glorious Roman villas.

The Marchesa d'Ateleta was in the habit of spending the summer and part of the autumn at Schifanoja; for, though athorough woman of the world, she was fond of the country and its freedom, and liked to keep open house there for her friends. She had lavished every care and attention upon Andrea during his illness; had been to him like an elder sister, almost a mother, and untiring in her devotion. She cherished a profound affection for her cousin, was ever ready to excuse or pardon, was a good and frank friend to him, capable of understanding many things, always at his beck and call, always cheerful, always bright and witty. Although she had overstepped the thirties by a year, she had lost nothing of her youth, vivacity and great personal charm, for she possessed the secret of Madame de Pompadour's fascination, that 'beauté sans traits' which lights up with unexpected graces. Moreover, she possessed that rare gift commonly called tact. A fine feminine sense of the fitness of things was an infallible guide to her. In her relations with a host of acquaintances of either sex she always succeeded in steering her course discreetly; she never committed an error of taste, never weighed heavily on the lives of others, never arrived at an inopportune moment nor became importunate, no deed or word of hers but was entirely to the point. Her treatment of Andrea during the somewhat trying period of his convalescence was beyond all praise. She did her utmost to avoid disturbing or annoying him, and, what is more, managed that no one else should; she left him complete liberty, pretended not to notice his whims and melancholies; never worried him with indiscreet questions; made her company sit as lightly as possible on him at obligatory moments, and even went so far as to refrain from her usual witty remarks in his presence to save him the trouble of forcing a smile.

Andrea recognised her delicacy and was profoundly grateful.

Returning from the garden with unwonted lightness of heart on that September morning after writing his sonnets on the Hermes, he encountered Donna Francesca on the steps, and, kissing her hand, he exclaimed in laughing tones:

'Cousin Francesca, I have found the Truth and the Way!

'Alleluja!' she returned, lifting up her fair rounded arms,—'Alleluja!'

And she continued on her way down to the garden while Andrea went on to his room with heart refreshed.

A little while afterwards there came a gentle knock at the door and Francesca's voice asking—'May I come in?'

She entered with the lap of her dress and both arms full of great clusters of dewy roses, white, yellow, crimson, russet brown. Some were wide and transparent like those of the Villa Pamfili, all fresh and glistening, others were densely petalled, and with that intensity of colouring which recalls the boasted magnificence of the dyes of Tyre and Sidon; others again were like little heaps of odorous snow, and gave one a strange desire to bite into them and eat them. The infinite gradations of red, from violent crimson to the faded pink of over-ripe strawberries, mingled with the most delicate and almost imperceptible variations of white, from the immaculate purity of freshly fallen snow to the indefinable shades of new milk, the sap of the reed, dull silver, alabaster and opal.

'It is afestato-day,' she said, her laughing face appearing over the flowers that covered her whole bosom up to the throat.

'Thanks! Thanks!' Andrea cried again and again as he helped her to empty the mass of bloom on to the table, all over the books and papers and portfolios—'Rosa rosarum!'

Her hands once free, she proceeded to collect all the vases in the room and fill them with roses, arranging each cluster with rare artistic skill. While she did so, she talked of a thousand things with her usual blithe volubility, almost as if compensating herself for the parsimony of words and laughter she had exercised up till now, out of regard for Andrea's taciturn melancholy.

Presently she remarked, 'On the 15th we expect a beautiful guest, Donna Maria Ferrès y Capdevila, the wife of the Plenipotentiary for Guatemala. Do you know her?'

'I think not,'

'No, I do not suppose you could. She only returned to Italy a few months ago, but she will spend next winter in Rome because her husband has been appointed to that post. She is a very dear friend of mine—we knew each other as children, and were three years together at the Convent of the Annunciation in Florence. She is younger than I am.'

'Is she an American?'

'No, an Italian. She is from Sienna. She comes of the Bandinelli family, and was baptized with water from the "Fonte Gaja." For all that, she is rather melancholy by nature, but very sweet. The story of her marriage is not a very cheerful one. Ferrès is a most unsympathetic person. However, they have a little girl—a perfect darling—you will see; a little white face with enormous eyes and masses of dark hair. She is very like her mother—Look, Andrea, is not that rose just like velvet? And this—I could eat it—look—it is like glorified cream. How delicious!'

She went on picking out the different roses and chatting pleasantly. A wave of perfume, intoxicating as century-old wine, streamed from the massed flowers; some of the petals dropped and hung in the folds of Francesca's gown; beneath the window the dark shaft of a cypress pierced the golden sunshine, and through Andrea's memory ran persistently, like a phrase of music, a line from Petrarch:—

'Cosi partia le rose e le parole.'

Two days afterwards he repaid his cousin by presenting her with a sonnet curiously fashioned on an antique model and inscribed on vellum with illuminated ornaments in the style of those that enliven the missals of Attavante and of Liberale of Verona.

'Ferrara, for its d'Estes glorious,Where Cossa strove in triumphs to recallCosimo Tura's triumphs on the wall,Saw never feast more fair and plenteous.Monna Francesca plucked and bore to usSuch store of roses, and so shed on all,That heaven had lacked for such a coronalThe little angels it engarlands thus.She spoke, and shed the roses in such showers,And such a loveliness was seen in her,Thissaid I,is some Grace the sun discloses.I trembled at the sweetness of the flowers.A verse of Petrarch mounted in the air:She scatters words and scatters with them roses.

'Ferrara, for its d'Estes glorious,Where Cossa strove in triumphs to recallCosimo Tura's triumphs on the wall,Saw never feast more fair and plenteous.

Monna Francesca plucked and bore to usSuch store of roses, and so shed on all,That heaven had lacked for such a coronalThe little angels it engarlands thus.

She spoke, and shed the roses in such showers,And such a loveliness was seen in her,Thissaid I,is some Grace the sun discloses.

I trembled at the sweetness of the flowers.A verse of Petrarch mounted in the air:She scatters words and scatters with them roses.

On the following Wednesday, the 15th of September, the new guest arrived.

The Marchesa, accompanied by Andrea and her eldest son, Fernanindo, drove over to Rovigliano, the nearest station, to meet her. As they drove along the road shadowed by lofty poplars, the Marchesa spoke to Andrea of her friend with much affection.

'I think you will like her,' she remarked in conclusion.

Then she began to laugh as if at some sudden thought.

'Why do you laugh?' asked Andrea.

'I am making a comparison.'

'What comparison?'

'Guess.'

'I can't.'

'Well, I was thinking of another introduction I gave you about two years ago, which I accompanied by a delightful prophecy—you remember?'

'Ah—ha—'

'And I laughed because this time again there is an unknown lady in question and this time too I may play the part of—an involuntary providence.'

'Oh—oh!'

'But this case is very different, or rather the difference lies in the heroine of the possible drama.'

'You mean—'

'That Maria Ferrès is aturris eburnea.'

'And I am now avas spirituale.'

'Ah yes, I had forgotten that you had, at last, found theTruth and the Way—"'The glad soul laughs because its loves have fled—'"

'What—you are quoting my verses?'

'I know them by heart.'

'How sweet of you!'

'However, I confess, my dear cousin, that your "fair white woman" holding the Host in her pure hands seems to me a trifle suspicious. She has, to my mind, too much of the air of a hollow shape, a robe without a body inside it, at the mercy of whatever soul, be it angel or demon, that chooses to enter it and offer you the communion.

'But this is sacrilege—rank sacrilege!'

'Ah, you had better take care! Watch that figure and use plenty of exorcisms—But there, I am prophesying again! Really, it seems a weakness of mine.'

'Here we are at the station.'

They both laughed, and all three entered the little station to wait for the train, which was due in a few minutes. Fernandino a sickly-looking boy of twelve, was carrying a bouquet which he was to present to Donna Maria. Andrea, put in excellent spirits by his little conversation with his cousin, took a tea-rose from the bouquet and stuck it in his button-hole, then cast a rapid glance over his light summer clothes and noticed with complaisance that his hands had become whiter and thinner since his illness. But he did it all without reflection, simply from an instinct of harmless vanity which had suddenly awakened in him.

'Here comes the train,' said Fernandino.

The Marchesa hurried forward to greet her friend, who was already leaning out of the carriage window waving her hand and nodding. Her head was enveloped in a large gray gauze veil which half covered her large black hat.

'Francesca! Francesca!' she cried with a little tremor of joy in her voice.

The sound of that voice made a singular impression on Andrea—it reminded him vaguely of a voice he knew—but whose?

Donna Maria left the carriage with a rapid and light step, and with a pretty grace raised her veil above her mouth to kiss her friend. Suddenly Andrea was struck by the profound charm of this slender, graceful, veiled woman of whose face he saw only the mouth and chin.

'Maria, let me present my cousin to you—Count Andrea Sperelli-Fieschi d'Ugenta.'

Andrea bowed. The lady's lips parted in a smile that was rendered mysterious from the rest of the face being concealed by the veil.

The Marchesa then introduced Andrea to Don Manuel Ferrès y Capdevila; then, stroking the hair of the little girl who was gazing at the young man with a pair of wide-open, astonished eyes, 'This is Delfina,' she said.

In the carriage, Andrea sat opposite to Donna Maria and beside her husband. She kept her veil down still; Fernandino's bouquet lay in her lap and from time to time she raised it to her face to inhale the perfume while she answered the Marchesa's questions. Andrea was right; there were tones in her voice exactly like Elena's. He was seized with impatient curiosity to see her face—its expression and colouring.

'Manuel,' she was saying, 'has to leave on Friday. He will come back for me later on.'

'Much later, let us hope,' said Donna Francesca cordially. 'A month, at the very least, eh, Don Manuel? The best plan would be to wait and all go on the same day. We are at Schifanoja till the first of November.'

'If my mother were not expecting me, nothing would delight me more than to stay with you. But I have promised faithfully to be in Sienna for the 17th of October—Delfina's birthday.'

'What a pity! on the 20th there is the Festival of the Donations at Rovigliano—so very beautiful and peculiar.'

'What is to be done? If I do not keep my promise, my mother will be dreadfully disappointed. She adores Delfina.'

The husband took no part whatever in the conversation,he seemed a very taciturn man. He was of middle height, inclined to be stout and bald, and his skin of a most peculiar hue—something between green and violet, in which the whites of the eyes gleamed as they moved like the enamel eyes of certain antique bronze heads. His moustache, which was harsh and black and cut evenly like the bristles of a brush, shadowed a coarse and sardonic mouth. He appeared to be about forty, or rather more. In his whole appearance there was something disagreeably hybrid and morose, that indefinable air of viciousness which belongs to the later generations of bastard races brought up in the midst of moral disorder.

'Look, Delfina—orange trees, all in flower!' exclaimed Donna Maria, stretching out her hand to pluck a spray as they passed.

Near Schifanoja, the road lay between orange groves, the trees being so high that they afforded a pleasant shade, through which the sea-breeze sighed and fluttered, so laden with perfume that one might almost have quaffed it like a draught of cool water.

Delfina was kneeling on the carriage seat and leaned out to catch at the branches. Her mother wound an arm about her to keep her from falling out.

'Take care! Take care! You will tumble—wait a moment till I untie my veil. Would you mind helping me, Francesca?'

She bent her head towards her friend to let her unfasten the veil from her hat, and in doing so the bouquet of roses fell at her feet. Andrea promptly picked them up, and as he rose from his stooping position, he at last saw her whole face uncovered.

It was an oval face, perhaps the least trifle too long, but hardly worth mentioning—that aristocratic oval which the most graceful portrait painters of the fifteenth century were rather fond of exaggerating. The refined features had that subtle expression of suffering and lassitude which lends the human charm to the Virgins of the Florentinetondiof the time of Cosimo. A soft and tender shadow, the fusion oftwo diaphanous tints—violet and blue, lay under her eyes, which had the leonine irises of the brown-haired angels. Her hair lay on her forehead and temples like a heavy crown, and was gathered into a massive coil on her neck. The shorter locks in front were thick and waving as those that cover the head of the Farnese Antinous. Nothing could exceed the charm of that delicate head, which seemed to droop under its burden as under some divine chastisement.

'Dio mio!' she sighed, endeavouring to lighten with her hands the weight of tresses gathered up and compressed under her hat. 'My head aches as if I had been hanging by the hair for an hour. I cannot keep it fastened up for long together, it tires me so. It is a perfect slavery.'

'Do you remember at school,' broke in Francesca, 'how we were all wild to comb your hair? It led to furious quarrels every day. Fancy, Andrea—at last it came to bloodshed! Oh, I shall never forget the scene between Carlotta Fiordelise and Gabriella Vanni. It got to be sheer monomania. To comb Maria Bandinelli's hair was the one ambition in life of every school-girl there—big or little. The epidemic spread through the whole school, and resulted in scoldings, punishments, and finally threats to have your hair cut off. Do you remember, Maria? Our very souls were enthralled by the magnificent black plait that hung like a rope to your heels!'

Donna Maria smiled a mournful, dreamy smile. Her lips were slightly parted, the upper one projecting the least little bit beyond the under one; the corners of her mouth drooped plaintively, the soft curve losing itself in shadow which gave her an expression both sad and kind, but with a dash of that pride which reveals the moral elevation of those who have suffered much and been strong.

To Andrea the story of these girls enamoured of a plait of hair, enflamed with passion and jealousy, wild to pass a comb or their fingers through the living treasure, seemed a charming and poetic episode of convent life, and in his imagination, this woman with the sumptuous hair becamevaguely illumined like the heroine of some Christian legend of the childhood of a saint destined for martyrdom and future canonisation. At the same time, it struck him what rich and varied lines might be afforded to the design of a female figure by the undulating masses of that black hair.

Not that it was really black, as Andrea perceived next day at dinner, when a ray of sunshine touched the lady's head, bringing out sombre violet lights, reflections as of tempered steel or burnished silver. Notwithstanding its density too, it was perfectly light, each hair seeming to stand apart as if permeated by and breathing the air. Her conversation revealed keen intelligence and a delicate mind, much refinement of taste and pleasure in the æsthetic. She possessed abundant and varied culture, a vivid imagination, and the rich, descriptive language of one who has seen many lands, lived under widely different climes, known many people. To Andrea, she seemed to exhale some exotic charm, some strange fascination, some spell born of the phantoms of the far off things she had looked upon, the scenes she still preserved before her mind's eye, the memories that filled her soul; as if she still bore about her some traces of the sunshine she had basked in, the perfumes she had inhaled, the strange dialects she had heard—all the magic of these countries of the Sun.

That evening, in the great room opening off the hall, she went over to the piano, and opening it, she said: 'Do you still play, Francesca?'

'Oh, no,' replied the Marchesa, 'I have not practised for years. I feel that listening to others is decidedly preferable. However, I affect to be a patroness of Art, and during the winter I gladly preside at the execution of a little good music. Is that not so, Andrea?'

'My cousin is too modest, Donna Maria; she does something more than merely patronise—she is a reviver of good taste. Only last February, thanks to her, we were made acquainted with a quintett, a quartett, and a trio of Boccherini, and besides that with a quartett of Cherubini—music thatwas well-nigh forgotten, but admirable and always new. Boccherini's adagios and minuets are deliciously fresh; only the finales seem to me a trifle antiquated. I am sure you must know something of his.'

'I remember having heard one of his quintetts four of five years ago at the Conservatoire in Brussels, and I thought it magnificent—in the very newest style and full of unexpected episodes. I remember perfectly that in certain passages the quintett was reduced to a duet by employing the unison, but the effects produced by the difference in the tone of the instruments was something marvellous! I cannot recall anything the least like it in other instrumental compositions.'

She discussed music with all the subtlety of a true connoisseur, and in describing the sentiments aroused in her by some particular composition, or the entire work of a master, she expressed herself most felicitously.

'I have played and heard a great deal of music,' she said, 'and of every symphony, every sonata, every nocturne I have a separate and distinct picture, an impression of shape and colour, of a figure, a group, a landscape, so that each of my favourite compositions has a name corresponding to the picture;—for instance, the Sonata of the Forty Daughters-in-law of Priam; the Nocturne of the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, the Gavotte of the Yellow Ladies, the Gigue of the Mill, the Prelude of the Drops of Water, and so on.'

She laughed softly, a laugh which surprised one with its ineffable grace on that plaintive mouth.

'You remember, Francesca, the multitude of notes with which we afflicted the margins of our favourite pieces at school. One day, after a most serious consultation, we changed the title of every piece of Schumann's we possessed, and each title had a long explanatory note. I have the papers still. Now, when I play theMyrthenor theAlbumblätter, all these mysterious annotations are quite incomprehensible to me; my emotions and my point of view have changed completely, but there is a delicate pleasure in comparing the sentiments of the present with those of thepast, the new picture and the old. It is a pleasure very similar to that of re-reading one's diary, only perhaps rather more mournful and intense. A diary is generally the description of real events, a chronicle of days happy or otherwise, the gray or rosy traces left by time in its flight; the notes written in youth on the margin of a piece of music are, on the contrary, fragments of the secret poems of a soul that is just breaking into bloom, the lyric effusions of our ideality as yet untouched, the story of our dreams. What language? What a flow of words! You remember, Francesca?'

She talked with perfect freedom, even with a touch of spiritual exaltation, like a person long condemned to intercourse with inferiors, who has the irresistible desire to open her mind and heart to a breath of the higher life. Andrea listened to her and was conscious of a pleasing sense of gratitude towards her. It seemed to him that in speaking of these things in his presence, she offered him a kindly proof of friendship, and permitted him to draw nearer to her. He thereby caught a glimpse of her inner world, less through the actual words she uttered than by the modulations of her voice. And again he recognised the accents ofthe other.

It was an ambiguous voice, a voice with double chords in it, so to speak. The more virile tones, deep and slightly veiled, would soften, brighten, become feminine, as it were, by a transition so harmonious that the ear of the listener was at once surprised, delighted, and perplexed by it. The phenomenon was so singular that it sufficed by itself to occupy the mind of the listener independently of the sense of the words, so that after a few minutes the mind yielded to the mysterious charm and remained suspended between expectation and desire to hear the sweet cadence, as if waiting for a melody played upon an instrument. It was the feminine note in this voice which recalledthe other.

'You sing?' asked Andrea half shyly.

'A little,' she replied.

'Then please sing a little,' entreated Donna Francesca.

'Very well, but I can only give you a sort of idea of themusic, for, during the last year, I have almost lost my voice.'

In the adjoining room, Don Manuel was silently playing cards with the Marchese d'Ateleta. In the drawing-room the light of the lamps shone softly red through a great Japanese shade. The sea-breeze, entering through the pillars of the hall, shook the high Karamanieh curtains and wafted the perfume of the garden on its wings. Beyond the pillars was a vista of tall cypresses, massive and black as ebony against a diaphanous sky throbbing with stars.

'As we are on the subject of old music,' said Donna Maria seating herself at the piano, 'I will give you an air of Paisiello's out ofNina Pazza, an exquisite thing.'

She accompanied herself as she sang. In the fervour of the song, the two tones of her voice blended into one another like two precious metals combining to make a single one—sonorous, warm, caressing, vibrating. Paisiello's melody—simple, pure and spontaneous, full of delicious languor and winged sadness, with a delicately light accompaniment—issued from that plaintive mouth and rose with such a flame of passion that the convalescent was moved to the depths of his being, and felt the notes drop one by one through his veins, as if all the blood in his body had stopped in its course to listen. A cold shiver stirred the roots of his hair, shadows, thick and rapid, passed before his eyes, he held his breath with excitement. In the weak state of his nerves his sensations were so poignant that it was all he could do to keep back his tears.

'Oh, dearest Maria!' exclaimed Donna Francesca, kissing her fondly on the hair when she stopped.

Andrea could not utter a word; he remained seated where he was, with his back to the light and his face in shadow.

'Please go on,' said Francesca.

She sang an Arietta by Antonio Salieri, then she played a Toccata by Leonardo Leo, a Gavotte by Rameau, a Gigue by Sebastian Bach. Under her magic fingers the music of the eighteenth century lived again—so melancholy in its danceairs, that sound as if they were intended to be danced to in a languid afternoon of a Saint Martin's summer, in a deserted park, amid silent fountains and statueless pedestals, on a carpet of dead roses by pairs of lovers on the point of ceasing to love one another.

'Let down a rope of your hair to me that I may climb up,' Andrea called laughingly from the terrace below to Donna Maria, where she stood between two pillars of the loggia opening out of her rooms.

It was morning, and she had come out into the sun to dry her wet hair, which hung round her like a heavy mantle, and accentuated the soft pallor of her face. The black border of the vivid orange-coloured awning hung above her head like a frieze, such as one sees round the antique Greek vases of the Campagna. Had she had a garland of narcissus on her brows and at her side a great nine-stringed lyre with bas-reliefs of Apollo and a greyhound, she might have been taken for a pupil of the school of Mytilene, or a Lesbian musician in repose as imagined by a Pre-Raphaelite.

'You send me up a madrigal,' she answered in the same playful tone, but drawing back a little from view.

'Very well, I will go and write one in your honour on the marble balustrade of the lowest terrace. Come down and read it when you are ready.'

Andrea proceeded slowly to descend the steps leading to the lower level. In that September morning his soul seemed to dilate with every breath he drew. A certain sanctity seemed to pervade the air; the sea shone with a splendour of its own, as if the sources of magic rays lay in its depths; the whole landscape was steeped in sunshine.

He stood still from time to time. The thought that Donna Maria was perhaps watching him from the loggia disturbed him curiously, made his heart beat fast and flutter timidly,as if he were a boy in love for the first time. It was unspeakable bliss merely to breathe the same warm and limpid air that she did. An immense wave of tenderness flooded his heart and communicated itself to the trees, the rocks, the sea, as if to beings who were his friends and confidants. He was filled with a desire to worship humbly and purely; to bend his knee and clasp his hands and offer up to some one this vague mute adoration which he would have been at a loss to explain. He felt as if the goodness of all created things was being poured out upon him and mingling with all he possessed of goodness into one jubilant stream.

'Can it be that I love her?' he asked himself. But he dared not look closely into his soul, lest the delicate enchantment should disperse and vanish like a dream at break of day.

'Do I love her? And what does she think? And if she comes alone, shall I tell her that I love her?' He took pleasure in thus asking himself questions which he did not answer, intercepting the reply of his heart by another question, prolonging his uncertainty—at once so tormenting and so sweet. 'No, no—I shall not tell her that I love her. She is far above all the others.'

Arrived at the lowest terrace, he turned round and looked up, and there in the loggia, in the full blaze of the sun, he could just make out the indistinct outline of a woman's form. Had she followed him with her eyes and her thoughts down the long flights of steps? A childish impulse made him suddenly pronounce her name aloud on the deserted terrace. 'Maria! Maria!' he repeated, listening to his own voice. No word, no name had ever seemed to him so sweet, so melodious so caressing. How happy he would be if she would only allow him to call her Maria, like a sister.

This woman—so spiritual, so soulful—inspired him with the highest sentiment of devotion and humility. If he had been asked what he considered the sweetest possible task, he would have answered in all sincerity—'To obey her.' Nothing in the world would have mortified him so much asto be accounted by her a commonplace man. By no other woman had he so ardently desired to be praised, admired, understood, appreciated in his tastes, his cultivation, his artistic aspirations, his ideals, his dreams, all the noblest parts of his spirit and his life. And his highest ambition was to fill her heart.

She had now been ten days at Schifanoja, and in those ten days how entirely she had subjugated him! They had conversed sometimes for hours seated on the terrace or on one of the numerous marble benches scattered about the grounds or in the long rose-bordered avenues, while Delfina sped like a little gazelle through the winding paths of the orange groves. In her conversation she displayed a charming flow of language, many gems of delicate yet keen observation, occasionally affording glimpses of her inner self with a candour that was full of grace; and when speaking of her travels, she would often, by a single picturesque phrase, call up before Andrea's eyes wide vistas of distant lands and seas. On his part, he did his utmost to show himself to the best advantage, to impress upon her the wide range of his culture, the refinement of his taste, the exquisite keenness of his susceptibilities, and his heart swelled with pride when she said in tones of unfeigned sincerity after reading hisStory of the Hermaphrodite—

'No music has ever carried me away like this poem, nor has any statue ever given me such an impression of harmonious beauty. Certain lines haunt me persistently, and will continue to do so for long, I am sure—they are so intense.'

As he sat now on the marble balustrade, he was thinking of these words of hers. Donna Maria was no longer in the loggia, the awning concealed the whole space between the pillars. Perhaps she would soon be down—should he write the madrigal he had promised her? But even the slight effort necessary for writing the lines thus in hot haste seemed intolerable to him here in the wide and opulent garden, blossoming under the September sunshine in a sort of magical Spring. Why disturb these rare and deliciousemotions by a hurried search after rhymes? why reduce this far reaching sentiment to a brief metrical sigh?

He resolved to break his promise and remained as he was, idly watching the sails on the distant horizon, like fiery torches outshining the sun.

But as time went on, he grew restless and nervous, turning round every minute to see if a feminine form had not appeared between the columns of the vestibule which gave access to the steps—'Was this then a love tryst? Did he expect her to join him here for some secret interview? Had she any idea of his agitation?'

His heart gave a great throb—it was she!

She was alone. Slowly she descended the steps, and when she reached the first terrace she stopped beside the fountain. Andrea followed her intently with his eyes; her every movement, every attitude sent a delicious thrill through him, as if each one of them had some special significance, were a form of individual expression. Thus she passed down the succession of steps and terraces, appearing and disappearing, now completely hidden by the rose-bushes, now only her head or her rounded bust visible above them. Sometimes the thickly interlaced boughs hid her for several minutes, then, where the bushes were thinner, the colour of her dress would show through them and the pale straw of her hat would catch the sunlight. The nearer she came the more slowly she walked, loitering among the verdant shrubs, stopping to gaze at the cypresses, stooping to gather a handful of fallen leaves. From the last terrace but one, she waved her hand to Andrea standing waiting for her at the foot of the steps, and threw down to him the leaves she had gathered, which first rose fluttering in the air like a cloud of butterflies and then floated down—now fast, now slow,—noiseless as snowflakes on the stones.

'Well?' she asked, leaning over the balustrade, 'what have you got for me?'

Andrea bent his knee to the step and lifted his clasped hands.

'Nothing!' he was obliged to confess. 'I implore you toforgive me; but, this morning, you and the sun together filled the whole world for me with sweetness and light.Adoremus!

The confession was perfectly sincere, as was the adoration also, though both were uttered in a tone of banter. Donna Maria evidently felt the sincerity, for she coloured slightly as she said with peculiar earnestness—

'No—don't—please don't kneel.'

He rose, and she offered him her hand, adding, 'I will forgive you this time because you are an invalid.'

She wore a dress of a curious indefinable dull rusty red, one of those so-called æsthetic colours one meets with in the pictures of the Early Masters or of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It was arranged in a multitude of straight regular folds beginning immediately under the arms, and was confined at the waist by a wide blue-green ribbon, of the pale tinge of a faded turquoise, that fell in a great knot at her side. The sleeves were very full and soft, and were gathered in closely at the wrist. Another ribbon of the same shade, but much narrower, encircled her neck and was tied at the left side in a small bow, and a similar ribbon fastened the end of the prodigious plait which fell from under her straw hat, round which was twined a wreath of hyacinths like that of Alma Tadema's Pandora. A great Persian turquoise, her sole ornament, shaped like a scarabeus and engraved with talismanic characters, fastened her dress at the throat.

'Let us wait for Delfina,' she said, 'and then, what do you say to our going as far as the gate of the Cybele? Would that suit you?'

She was full of delicate consideration for the convalescent Andrea was still very pale and thin, which made his eyes look extraordinarily large, the somewhat sensual expression of his mouth forming a singular and not unattractive contrast to the upper part of his face.

'Yes,' he replied, 'and I am deeply grateful to you.' Then, after a moment's hesitation—'Do you mind if I am rather silent this morning?'

'Why do you ask me that?'

'Because I feel as if I had lost my tongue and could find nothing to say; and yet silence becomes burdensome and annoying if it is prolonged. That is why I ask if, during our walk, you will allow me to be silent and only listen to you.'

'Why, then, we will be silent together,' she said with a little smile.

She looked up towards the villa with evident impatience—'What a long time Delfina is!'

'Was Francesca up when you came out?' asked Andrea.

'Oh no, she is incredibly lazy—ah, there is Delfina, do you see her?'

The little girl came hurrying down, followed by her governess. Though not visible on the flight of steps, she appeared upon the terraces which she traversed at a run, her hair floating over her shoulders in the breeze from under a broad-brimmed straw hat wreathed with poppies. On the last step she opened her arms wide to her mother and covered her face with kisses. After this she said—'Good morning, Andrea,' and presented her forehead to his kiss with childlike and adorable grace.

She was a fragile creature, highly strung and vibrating as an instrument fashioned of sentient material, her flesh so delicately transparent as to seem incapable of concealing or even veiling the radiance of the spirit that dwelt within it like a flame in a precious lamp.

'Heart's dearest!' murmured her mother, gazing at her with a look in which was concentrated all the tenderness of a soul wholly occupied by this one absorbing affection. But at those words, that look, that caress, Andrea felt a sudden stab of jealousy, something like a rebuff, as if her heart were turning away from him, eluding him, becoming inaccessible.

The governess asked permission to return to the villa, and the three turned into a path bordered by orange-trees. Delfina ran on in front with her hoop, her straight slender little legs in their long black stockings, moving with rhythmic grace.

'You seem a little out of spirits now,' said Donna Maria to her companion, 'and only a little while ago, when you came down, you seemed so bright. Is something troubling you?—do you not feel so well?'

She put these questions in an almost sisterly manner soberly and kindly, inviting his confidence. A timid desire, a vague temptation assailed the invalid to slip his arm through hers, and let her lead him in silence through the flickering shadows and the perfumes, over the flower-strewn ground, down the pathways measured off at intervals by ancient moss-grown statues. He seemed, all at once, to have returned to the first days of his illness, those never-to-be-forgotten days of happy languor and semi-unconsciousness, and felt as if he had great need of a friendly support, an affectionate, a familiar arm. The desire grew so intense that the words which would give it voice rushed to his lips. However he merely replied—

'No, Donna Maria, thank you, I feel quite well. It is only that the September weather rather affects me.'

She looked at him as if she rather doubted the sincerity of his reply; but, to avoid an awkward silence after his evasive remark, she asked—

'Which of the neutral months do you like best—April or September?'

'Oh, September. It is more feminine, more discreet, more mysterious—like a Spring seen in a dream. Then all the plants slowly lose their vital forces, and, at the same time, some of their reality. Look at the sea over there—has it not more the appearance of an atmosphere than of a solid mass of water? And never, to my mind, does the union of sea and sky seem so mystical, so profound as in September.'

They had very nearly reached the end of the path. Why should Andrea be suddenly seized with a tremor of nervous fear on approaching the spot where, a fortnight ago, he had written the sonnets on his deliverance? Why this struggle between hope and anxiety lest she should discover them and read them? Why did some of the lines keep running in hismind to the exclusion of others, as if they expressed his actual sentiments at that moment, his aspirations, the new dream he carried in his heart?

'I lay at thine untroubled feet my fate!'

It was true! It was true! He loved her, he laid his whole life at her feet—was conscious of but one desire—humble and absorbing—to be the earth between her footsteps.

'How beautiful it is here!' exclaimed Donna Maria, as she entered the demesne of the four-fronted Hermes, into the paradise of the acanthus. 'But what a strange scent!'

The whole air was full of the odour of musk, as from the unseen presence of some musk-breathing insect or animal. The shadows were deep and mysterious, the rays of light which pierced the foliage, already touched by the finger of autumn, seemed like shafts of moonlight shining through the storied windows of a cathedral. A mixed sentiment, partly Pagan, partly Christian, seemed to emanate from this sylvan retreat, as from a mythological picture painted by an early Christian artist.

'Oh look, look, Delfina!' her mother exclaimed in the excited tones of one who suddenly comes upon a thing of beauty.

Delfina had skilfully woven little sprays of orange blossom into a garland, and now, with the fancifulness of childhood, she was eager that it should encircle the head of the marble deity. She could not reach it, but did her best to accomplish her object by standing on tip-toe and stretching her arm to its utmost extent; her slender, elegant and vivacious little figure offering a striking contrast to the rigid, square and solemn form of the statue, like a lily-stem against an oak. All her efforts were, however, fruitless.

Smilingly, her mother came to her aid. Taking the wreath from the child's hand, she placed it on the pensive brows of the god. As she did so, her eyes fell involuntarily upon the inscriptions.

'Who has been writing verses here.—You?' she asked,turning to Andrea in surprise and pleasure. 'Yes—I recognise your hand.'

Forthwith, she knelt upon the grass to read with eager curiosity. While Donna Maria read the words in a low voice, Delfina leaned upon her mother's shoulder, one arm about her neck, cheek pressed to cheek. The two figures thus bending over the pedestal of the tall flower-wreathed statue, in the uncertain light, surrounded by the emblematical acanthus, formed a group so harmonious in line and colouring that the poet stood a moment lost in pure æsthetic pleasure and admiration.

But the next moment the old obscure sense of jealousy was upon him once more. The fragile little creature clinging to the mother, indissolubly connected with her mother's very being, seemed to him an enemy, an insurmountable obstacle rising up against his love, his desires, his hopes. He was not jealous of the husband, but he was of the daughter. It was not the body but the soul of this woman that he longed to possess, and to possess it wholly, undivided, with all its tenderness, all its joys, its hopes, its fears, its pain, its dreams—in short the sum total of her spiritual being, and be able to say—'I am the life of her life.'

But instead, it was the daughter who possessed all this incontestably, absolutely, continuously. When her idol left her side, even for a short time, the mother seemed to miss some essential element of her existence. Her face was instantaneously and visibly transfigured when, after a brief absence, that childish voice fell upon her ear once more. At times, unconsciously and as if by some occult correspondence, some law of common vital accordance, she would repeat a gesture of the child's, a smile, an attitude, a pose of the head. Again, when the child was in repose or asleep, she had moments of contemplation so intense that she seemed to have lost all sense of her surroundings and to have absorbed herself into the creature she was contemplating. When she spoke to her darling, every word was a caress, and the plaintive lines vanished from her mouth. Under thechild's kisses, her lips quivered and her eyes filled with ineffable happiness like the eyes of an ecstatic at a beatific vision. If she happened to be conversing with other people or listening to their talk, she would appear to have sudden lapses of attention, momentary absence of mind, and this was for her daughter—for her—always for her.

Who could ever break that chain? Could any one ever succeed in conquering a part—even the very smallest atom of that heart? Andrea suffered as under an irreparable loss, some forced renunciation, some shattered hope. At this moment, this very moment, was not the child stealing something from him?

For Delfina was playfully constraining her mother to remain upon her knees. She hung with all her weight round Donna Maria's neck, crying through her laughter—

'No—no—no—you shall not get up!'

And whenever her mother opened her mouth to speak, she clapped her little hands over it to prevent her, made her laugh, bandaged her eyes with the long plait—played a hundred pranks.

Watching her, Andrea felt, that by all this playful commotion, she was dispelling from her mother all that his verses had possibly instilled into her mind.

When, at last, Donna Maria succeeded in freeing herself from her darling tyrant, she saw his annoyance in his face, and hastened to say—'Forgive me, Andrea, Delfina is sometimes taken with these fits of wildness.'

With a deft hand she re-arranged the disordered folds of her dress. There was a faint flush under her eyes and her breath came quickly.

'And forgive her too,' she continued with a smile to which the unwonted animation of colour lent a singular light, 'out of consideration for her unconscious homage, for it was she who had the happy inspiration to place a nuptial wreath over your verses which sing of nuptial communion. That sets a seal upon the alliance.'

'My thanks both to you and to Delfina,' answered Andrea.It was the first time she had called him by his Christian name, and the unexpected familiarity, combined with her gentle words, restored his confidence. Delfina had run off down one of the paths.

'These verses are a spiritual record, are they not?' Donna Maria resumed. 'Will you give them to me that I may not forget them?'

His natural impulse was to answer—'They are yours by right to-day, for they speak of you and to you——' But he only said—

'You shall have them.'

They continued their way towards the Cybele, but as they were leaving the little enclosure, Donna Maria suddenly turned round towards the Hermes as if some one had called her; her brow seemed heavy with thought.

'What are you thinking about?' Andrea asked her almost timidly.

'I was thinking about you,' she replied.

'What were you thinking about me?'

'I was thinking of your past life, of which I know nothing whatever. You have suffered greatly?'

'I have greatly sinned.'

'And loved much?'

'I do not know. Perhaps it was not love that I felt. Perhaps I have yet to learn what love is—really I cannot say.'

She did not answer. They walked on in silence for a little way. To their right, the path was bordered by high laurels, alternating at regular intervals with cypress trees, and in the background, through the fluttering leaves, the sea rippled and laughed, blue as the flower of the flax. On their left ran a kind of parapet like the back of a long stone bench, ornamented throughout its whole length with the Ateleta shield and arms and a griffin alternately, under each of which again was a sculptured mask through whose mouth a slender stream of water fell into a basin below, shaped like a sarcophagus and ornamented with mythological subjects in low relief. There must have been a hundred of these mouths, for thewalk was called the avenue of the Hundred Fountains, but many of them were stopped up by time and had ceased to spout, while others did very little. Many of the shields were broken and moss had obliterated the coats of arms; many of the griffins were headless and the figures on the sarcophagi appeared through a veil of moss like fragments of silver work through an old and ragged velvet cover. On the water in the basins—more green and limpid than emerald—maiden-hair waved and quivered, or rose leaves, fallen from the bushes overhead, floated slowly while the surviving waterpipes sent forth a sweet and gurgling music that played over the murmur of the sea like the accompaniment to a melody.

'Do you hear that?' said Donna Maria, standing still to listen, attracted by the charm of the sound. 'That is the music of salt and of sweet waters!'

She stood in the middle of the path, finger on lip, leaning a little towards the fountains, in the attitude of one who listens and fears to be disturbed. Andrea, who was next the parapet, turned and saw her thus against a background of delicate and feathery verdure such as an Umbrian painter would have given to an Annunciation or a Nativity.

'Maria!' he murmured, his heart filling with fond adoration, 'Maria!—Maria—!'

It afforded him untold pleasure to mingle the soft accents of her name with the music of the waters. She did not look at him, but she laid her finger on her lips as a sign to him to be silent.

'Forgive me,' he said, unable to control his emotion—'but I cannot help myself—it is my soul that calls to you.'

A strange nervous exaltation had taken possession of him, all the hill-tops of his soul had caught the lyric glow and flamed up irresistibly; the hour, the place, the sunshine, everything about them suggested love—from the extreme limits of the sea to the humble little ferns of the fountains—all seemed to him part of the same magic circle whose central point was this woman.

'You can never know,' he went on in a subdued voice as if fearful of offending her—'You can never know how absolutely my soul is yours.'

She grew suddenly very pale, as if all the blood in her veins had rushed to her heart. She did not speak, she did not look at him.

'Delfina!' she cried, with a tremor of agitation in her voice.

There was no answer; the little girl had wandered off among the trees at the end of the long avenue.

'Delfina,' she repeated, louder than before, in a sort of terror.

In the pause that followed her cry the songs of the two waters seemed to make the silence deeper.

'Delfina!'

There was a rustling in the leaves as if from the passage of a little kid, and the child came bounding through the laurel thicket, carrying in her hands her straw hat heaped to the brim with little red berries she had gathered. Her exertions and the running had brought a deep flush to her cheeks, broken twigs were sticking in her frock, and some leaves hung trembling in the meshes of her ruffled hair.

'Oh mamma, come quick—do come with me!'

She began dragging her mother away—'There is a perfect forest over there—heaps and heaps of berries! Come with me, mamma, do come—'

'No, darling, I would rather not—it is getting late.'

'Oh, do come!'

'But it is late.'

'Come! Come!'

Donna Maria was obliged to give in and let herself be dragged along by the hand.

'There is a way of reaching the arbutus wood without going through the thicket,' said Andrea.

'Do you hear, Delfina? There is a better way.'

'No, mamma, I want you to come with me.'

Delfina pulled her mother along towards the sea throughthe laurel thicket, and Andrea followed, content to be able to gaze without restraint at the beloved figure in front of him, to devour her with his eyes, to study her every movement and her rhythmic walk, interrupted every moment by the irregularities of the path, the obstacles presented by the trees and their interlaced branches. But while his eyes feasted on these things, his mind was chiefly occupied in recalling the one attitude, the one look—oh, that pallor, that sudden pallor just now when he had proffered those few low words! And the indefinable tone of her voice when she called Delfina.

'Is it far now?' asked Donna Maria.

'No, no, mamma, we are just there—here it is!'

As they neared the spot a sort of shyness came over Andrea. Since those words of his he had not met Maria's eye. What did she think? What were her feelings? What would her eyes say when, at last, she looked at him?

'Here it is!' cried the little girl.

The laurels had grown thinner, affording a freer view of the sea, and the next moment the mass of arbutus flushed rosy-red before them like a forest of coral with large tassels of blossom at the end of their branches.

'What a glory!' murmured Maria.

The marvellous wilderness bloomed and bore fruit in a deep and sunny space curved like an amphitheatre, in which all the delicious sweetness of that aromatic shore seemed gathered up and concentrated. The stems, tall and slender, crimson for the most part, but here and there yellow, bore great shining green leaves, all motionless in the calm air. Innumerable tassels of blossom, like sprays of lily-of-the-valley, white and dewy, hung from the young boughs, while the maturer ones were loaded with red or orange-yellow fruit. And all this wondrous pomp of blossom and fruit, of green leaves and rosy stems displayed against the brilliant blue of the sea, like a garden in a fairy tale, intense and fantastic as a dream.

'What a marvel!'

Donna Maria advanced slowly, no longer led by Delfina, who, wild with delight, rushed about with no thought but for stripping the whole wood.

Andrea plucked up his courage.

'Can you forgive me?' he asked anxiously. 'I did not mean to offend you. Indeed, seeing you so far above me, so pure, so unapproachable, I thought that never in this world could I reveal my secret to you, never ask anything of you, never put myself in your way. Since ever I saw you, I have thought of you night and day, but without hope, without any definite end in view. I know that you do not love me, that you never can love me. And yet, believe me, I would renounce every promise that life may have in store for me, just for the hope of living in a little corner of your heart——'

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