see me well
again. Then I thanked him and his sister for their many kind thoughts
about me during my retreat, and I then learnt from him that her name was
Angela, and that she was the best and purest maiden in all Venice, and
that anyone might think himself happy indeed who could call her sister,
but that he was happier even than her brother, for he was to be married
to her, and indeed they were to be married the next day.

Thereupon my heart seemed to swell to bursting, and the blood rushed
through my veins so that I could hear it and nothing else for a while.
I managed at last to stammer forth some words of awkward congratulation,
and he left me, singing merrily, after asking permission to bring his
bride to see me on the morrow as they returned from church.

'For', said he, 'my Angela has known you very long--ever since she was a
child, and she has often spoken to me of the poor Englishman who was a
good Catholic, and who lay all day long for years and years on a sofa at
a window, and she had said over and over again how dearly she wished she
could speak to him and comfort him; and one day, when you threw a flower
into the canal, she asked me whether she might throw another, and I told
her yes, for he would understand that it meant sympathy for one sorely
afflicted.'

And so I learned that it was pity, and not love, except indeed such love
as is akin to pity, that prompted her to interest herself in my welfare,
and there was an end of it all.

For the two flowers that I thought were on one stem were two flowers
tied together (but I could not tell that), and they were meant to
indicate that she and the gondolier were affianced lovers, and my
expressed pleasure at this symbol delighted her, for she took it to
mean that I rejoiced in her happiness.

And the next day the gondolier came with a train of other gondoliers,
all decked in their holiday garb, and on his gondola sat Angela, happy,
and blushing at her happiness. Then he and she entered the house in
which I dwelt, and came into my room (and it was strange indeed, after
so many years of inversion, to see her with her head above her feet!),
and then she wished me happiness and a speedy restoration to good health
(which could never be); and I in broken words and with tears in my eyes,
gave her the little silver crucifix that had stood by my bed or my table
for so many years. And Angela took it reverently, and crossed herself,
and kissed it, and so departed with