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“You couldn’t have been much in love with her,” said Stanmer.

“I was not–three months after.”

“If you had been you would have come back–three days after.”

“So doubtless it seems to you. All I can say is that it was the great effort of my life. Being a military man, I have had on various occasions to face time enemy. But it was not then I needed my resolution; it was when I left Florence in a post-chaise.”

Stanmer turned about the room two or three times, and then he said: “I don’t understand! I don’t understand why she should have told you that Camerino had killed her husband. It could only damage her.”

“She was afraid it would damage her more that I should think he was her lover. She wished to say the thing that would most effectually persuade me that he was not her lover–that he could never be. And then she wished to get the credit of being very frank.”

“Good heavens, how you must have analysed her!” cried my companion, staring.

“There is nothing so analytic as disillusionment. But there it is. She married Camerino.”

“Yes, I don’t lime that,” said Stanmer. He was silent a while, and then he added–“Perhaps she wouldn’t have done so if you had remained.”

He has a little innocent way! “Very likely she would have dispensed with the ceremony,” I answered, drily.

“Upon my word,” he said, “you have analysed her!”

“You ought to be grateful to me. I have done for you what you seem unable to do for yourself.”

“I don’t see any Camerino in my case,” he said.

“Perhaps among those gentlemen I can find one for you.”

“Thank you,” he cried; “I’ll take care of that myself!” And he went away–satisfied, I hope.

10th.–He’s an obstinate little wretch; it irritates me to see him sticking to it. Perhaps he is looking for his Camerino. I shall leave him, at any rate, to his fate; it is growing insupportably hot.

11th.–I went this evening to bid farewell to the Scarabelli. There was no one there; she was alone in her great dusky drawing-room, which was lighted only by a couple of candles, with the immense windows open over the garden. She was dressed in white; she was deucedly pretty. She asked me, of course, why I had been so long without coming.

“I think you say that only for form,” I answered. “I imagine you know.”

“Che! what have I done?”

“Nothing at all. You are too wise for that.”

She looked at me a while. “I think you are a little crazy.”

“Ah no, I am only too sane. I have too much reason rather than too little.”

“You have, at any rate, what we call a fixed idea.”

“There is no harm in that so long as it’s a good one.”

“But yours is abominable!” she exclaimed, with a laugh.

“Of course you can’t like me or my ideas. All things considered, you have treated me with wonderful kindness, and I thank you and kiss your hands. I leave Florence tomorrow.”

“I won’t say I’m sorry!” she said, laughing again. “But I am very glad to have seen you. I always wondered about you. You are a curiosity.”

“Yes, you must find me so. A man who can resist your charms! The fact is, I can’t. This evening you are enchanting; and it is the first time I have been alone with you.”

She gave no heed to this; she turned away. But in a moment she came back, and stood looking at me, and her beautiful solemn eyes seemed to shine in the dimness of the room.

“How could you treat my mother so?” she asked.

“Treat her so?”

“How could you desert the most charming woman in the world?”

“It was not a case of desertion; and if it had been it seems to me she was consoled.”