e a
laughing nod of salutation as he left the room. I watched his retiring
figure with a strange pitifulness--the first emotion of the kind that
had awakened in me for him since I learned his treachery. His allusion
to that time when we had been students together--when we had walked
with arms round each other's necks "like school-girls," as he said, had
touched me more closely than I cared to realize. It was true, we had
been happy then--two careless youths with all the world like an
untrodden race-course before us. SHE had not then darkened the heaven
of our confidence; she had not come with her false fair face to make of
ME a blind, doting madman, and to transform him into a liar and
hypocrite. It was all her fault, all the misery and horror; she was the
blight on our lives; she merited the heaviest punishment, and she would
receive it. Yet, would to God we had neither of us ever seen her! Her
beauty, like a sword, had severed the bonds of friendship that after
all, when it DOES exist between two men, is better and braver than the
love of woman. However, all regrets were unavailing now; the evil was
done, and there was no undoing it. I had little time left me for
reflection; each moment that passed brought me nearer to the end I had
planned and foreseen.

CHAPTER XXIII.

At about a quarter to eight my guests began to arrive, and one by one
they all came in save two--the brothers Respetti. While we were
awaiting them, Ferrari entered in evening-dress, with the conscious air
of a handsome man who knows he is looking his best. I readily admitted
his charm of manner; had I not myself been subjugated and fascinated by
it in the old happy, foolish days? He was enthusiastically greeted and
welcomed back to Naples by all the gentlemen assembled, many of whom
were his own particular friends. They embraced him in the
impressionable style common to Italians, with the exception of the
stately Duca di Marina, who merely bowed courteously, and inquired if
certain families of distinction whom he named had yet arrived in Rome
for the winter season. Ferrari was engaged in replying to these
questions with his usual grace and ease and fluency, when a note was
brought to me marked "Immediate." It contained a profuse and elegantly
worded apology from Carlo Respetti, who regretted deeply that an
unforeseen matter of business would prevent himself and his brother
from having the inestimable honor and delight of dining with me that