ness--a bright and gorgeous picture it was too--ay, and I believed
it all; and yet, and yet--on the very day after you deserted me.' As she
uttered the last words, her head fell upon his shoulder, and her long
hair in waving masses dropped down over his chest and on his arm; a
violent sobbing seemed to choke her utterance, and her frame shook with
a strong tremor.

Gerald sank into a chair, and pressed her gently to his heart. Oh,
what a wild conflict raged within him; what hopes and fears, wishes and
dreads, warred there with each other! At one moment all his former love
came back, and she was the same Marietta he had wandered with through
the chestnut groves, reciting in boyish ardour the verses he had learned
to master; at the next, a shuddering shame reminded him that she had
just confessed she loved another, making a very mockery of the memory
of their former passion. What, too, was she--what her life--that she did
not dare to reveal it?

'And you,' cried she, suddenly springing up, 'what do you know of
Riquetti? How came you to be with him?'

'I have known him long, Marietta. Would that I had never known him!
Without him and his teachings I had thought better of the world--been
less prone to suspect--less ready to distrust. You may remember how,
long ago, I told you of a certain Gabriel----'

'It was he, then, who befriended you in the Maremma? Oh, the noble
nature that can do generous things, yet seem to think them weakness! How
widely different from your poets this--your men of high sentiment and
sordid action--your coiners of fine phrases, hollow-hearted and empty!'

'True enough,' said Gerald bitterly; 'Gabriel de Mirabeau is at least
consistent; his sentiments are all in harmony with his life--he is no
hypocrite.'

It was with a quick gesture, like a tigress about to spring, that she
now turned on him, her eyeballs staring wildly, and her fingers closely
clutched. 'Is it,' cried she in passion, 'is it given to creatures like
you or me to judge of a man like this? Do you imagine that by any strain
of your fancy you can conceive the trials, the doubts, the difficulties,
which beset him? To intellects like his what we call excess may give
that repose which to sluggish natures comes of mere apathy. I, too,'
said she, drawing herself proudly up, 'I, too, have been his pupil; he
saw me in the Cleopatra; he told me how I had misconceived the poet--or
rather, how the poet had mistaken the character--for he love