come to any
resolution. One thing, however, I determined on. I would write to her
the next day, and implore her to end this dreadful uncertainty; to rend
asunder the last tie which bound me to her. Then I remembered the words
of her note, but of what avail were they now to me? Now that I had seen
her come out of the church, and that day, and part of the night had
passed without bringing me any comfort.

When I heard the clock strike midnight, and the moon disappeared I
could no longer bear the awful stillness of the garden, and I returned
to the hall. I lighted a candle and placed it on the mantlepiece; then
I drew a chair near it, took a small volume of Dante from my pocket,
and was soon deeply engaged in perusing the most gloomy and despairing
canto of his "Inferno."

I had remained thus about an hour, when suddenly I thought I heard the
key turned in the lock of the garden gate. My hair stood on end. I
fancied in the first moment of terror that my poor darling had
destroyed herself, and that her restless spirit now sought me to suck
my heart's blood; but the next moment I had shaken off these senseless
ideas, and regained my composure. I arose and listened attentively in
the stillness of the night.

The garden gate was opened. I heard steps on the gravel walk--some one
sought for the handle of the hall door; it opened and a youth in a
black cloak and hat appeared on the threshold. Suddenly the hat fell
back from the brow, and I recognized Beatrice. With a cry of joy we
rushed into each other's arms, and clung to one another as though we
could never be torn asunder nor our lips ever parted.

At last she disengaged herself from my embrace, and her tearful eyes
turned on me with a sad mute gaze. "How pale thou art!" she said; "and
this is all my doing. But now it is all at an end. I have kept my word.
Here I am your own wife, and never another's, though I should suffer
for it in this world, and in the next. Oh! Amadeo, why is this world so
full of wicked people; why do they sully the purest, and revile the
most sacred feelings! Why do they force us to lie, and to perjure
ourselves in the very sight of God. We must say _yes_, with our lips,
while our hearts say _no_. They have brought me to this, that I can
only choose between two sins: either to deliver myself up to a man whom
I despise, or to slink like a thief in the night to one who in the eyes
of the world can never be mine. But God metes with another measure th