d'Avila restored the child, after she had declared her
willingness to make over to him the income she still received from her
aunt. The long journey, so full of excitement and fatigue, exhausted her
strength, and she returned to Milan feeble and broken in health.

Her patron had been anxious to keep the place of singing-mistress open
for her, but she could only fulfil for a short time the duties to which
the superior of the convent kindly summoned her, for her sickness was
increasing and a terrible cough spoiled her voice. She now returned to
Lugano, and there sought to compensate her poor honest friend by the
sale of her ornaments, but the time soon came when the generous artist
was forced to submit to be supported by the charity of a servant. Until
the last six months she had not suffered actual want, but when her
maid's husband died, anxiety about the means of procuring daily bread
arose, and now maternal love broke down Anna's pride: she wrote to her
father as a repentant daughter, bowed down by misfortune, but received
no reply. At last, reduced to starvation with her child, she undertook
the hardest possible task, and besought the man, of whom she could only
think with contempt and loathing, not to let his son grow up like a
beggar's child. The letter, which contained this cry of distress, had
reached Don Luis just before his death. No help was to come to her from
him. But Belotti appeared, and now she was once more at home, her friend
and sister were standing beside her bed, and Henrica encouraged her to
hope for her father's forgiveness.

It was past midnight, yet Georg still awaited his friend's return. The
noise and bustle of the camp began to die away and the lantern, which at
first had but feebly lighted the spacious lower-room of the farmhouse,
burned still more dimly. The German shared this apartment with
agricultural implements, harnesses, and many kinds of grain and
vegetables heaped in piles against the walls, but he lacked inclination
to cast even a glance at his motley surroundings. There was nothing
pleasant to him in the present or future. He felt humiliated, guilty,
weary of life. His self-respect was trampled under foot, love and
happiness were forfeited, there was naught before him save a colorless,
charmless future, full of bitterness and mental anguish. Nothing seemed
desirable save a speedy death. At times the fair image of his home
rose before his memory--but it vanished as soon as he recalle