e nature he was dealing with. He was telling her that a
further delay might keep them in London for a week; and that he had sent
for her mother to come to her.

"I must see my mother," she had said, excitedly. The extension of the
period named for quitting England made it more imminent m her imagination
than when it was a matter of hours. "I must see her."

"I have sent for her," said Merthyr, and then pressed Emilia's hand. But
she who, without having brooded on complaints of its absence, thirsted
for demonstrative kindness, clung to the hand, drawing it, doubled,
against her chin.

"That is not the reason," she said, raising her full eyes up at him over
the unrelinquished hand. "I love the poor Madre; let her come; but I have
no heart for her just now. I have seen Wilfrid."

She took a tighter hold of his fingers, as fearing he might shrink from
her. Merthyr hated mysteries, so he said, "I supposed it must have been
so--that night of our return from Penarvon?"

"Yes," she murmured, while she read his face for a shadow of a repulsion;
"and, my friend, I cannot go to Italy now!"

Merthyr immediately drew a seat beside her. He perceived that there would
be no access to her reason, even as he was on the point of addressing it.

"Then all my care and trouble are to be thrown away?" he said, taking the
short road to her feelings.

She put the hand that was disengaged softly on his shoulder. "No; not
thrown away. Let me be what Merthyr wishes me to be! That is my chief
prayer."

"Why, then, will you not do what Merthyr wishes you to do?"

Emilia's eyelids shut, while her face still fronted him.

"Oh! I will speak all out to you," she cried. "Merthyr, my friend, he
came to kiss me once, before I have only just understood it! He is going
to Austria. He came to touch me for the last time before his hand is red
with my blood. Stop him from going! I am ready to follow you:--I can hear
of his marrying that woman:--Oh! I cannot live and think of him in that
Austrian white coat. Poor thing!--my dear! my dear!" And she turned away
her head.

It is not unnatural that Merthyr hearing these soft epithets, should
disbelieve in the implied self-conquest of her preceding words. He had no
clue to make him guess that these were simply old exclamations of hers
brought to her lips by the sorrowful contrast in her mind.

"It will be better that you should see him," he said, with less of his
natural sincerity; so soon are we corru