led
in a deep, transparent blue; and the villas, painted white, pink and
green, with open loggias and balconies, completed the operatic
aspect.

"My mother will not hear of it; she would sooner see me dead than
married to you."

"Why?"

"She knows you are an atheist for one thing."

"But she does not know that I have six thousand a year."

"Six thousand a year! and who was the fairy that threw such fortune
into your lap? I thought you had nothing."

Vanity took him by the throat, but he wrenched himself free, and
answered evasively that a distant cousin had left him a large sum of
money, including an estate in Berkshire.

"Well, I'm very glad for your sake, but it will not influence
mother's opinion of you."

"Then you will run away with me? Say you will."

"That is the best--for I'm not strong enough to dispute with mother.
I dare say it is very cowardly of me, but I would avoid scenes; I've
had enough of them.... We'll go away together. Where shall we go? To
Italy?"

"Yes, to Italy--my Italy. And do you love me? Have you forgiven me my
conduct the day when you came to see me?"

"Yes, I love you; I have forgiven you."

"And when shall we go?"

"When you like. I should like to go over that sea; I should like to
go, Mike, with you, far away! Where, Mike?--Heaven?"

"We should find heaven dull; but when shall we go across that sea, or
when shall we go from here--now?"

"Now!"

"Why not?"

"Because here are my people coming to meet me. Now say nothing to my
mother about marriage, or she will never leave my side. I'm more ill
than you think I am--I should have no strength to struggle with her."

Not again that day did Mike succeed in speaking alone with Lily, and
the next day she and her mother and Major Downside, her uncle, went
to spend the day with some friends who had a villa in the environs of
the town. The day after he met mother and daughter out walking in the
morning. In the afternoon Lily was obliged to keep her room. Should
she die! should the irreparable happen! Mike crushed the instinct,
that made him see a poem in the death of his beloved; and he
determined to believe that he should possess her, love her and only
her; he saw himself a new Mike, a perfect and true husband-lover.
Never was man more weary of vice, more desirous of reformation.

He had studied the train service until he could not pretend to
himself there remained any crumb of excuse for further consideration
of it. He wa