e. To please her I
swallowed some morsels though I felt no hunger. She too would hardly
take anything till I began to feed her like a child holding the
choicest morsels to her lips, then she laughingly opened them and
complied with my request.

"Now I have had enough," she said, rising. "I must provide a better
couch for you than these cushions on the floor. Fabio never thinks
about such things. An old soldier like him hardly perceives whether he
is lying on the bare ground or on a feather-bed. To be sure the wisest
thing for you will be to take possession of my little room upstairs,
instead of remaining here where any body can look in, and betray you."
She took my arm and conducted me thither after we had put out all the
lights. As we passed Fabio's closet, I stopped to listen if he moved.
"Don't mind him," she whispered; "he knows that I am here. A short
while ago, when I fetched the wine, I met him coming from the garden,
where he had plucked the fruit for our wedding feast. He was nearly
beside himself with joy on seeing me; he wept, and kissed my hands. Now
he does not appear, for fear of disturbing us."

The day had not dawned when she reminded me that we must part. I
insisted on accompanying her back to town, and when she saw the
disguise in which I had ventured out the day before, she consented. She
pulled her broad brimmed hat over her eyes and I wrapped her up in her
large cloak. We then left the house, and proceeded in the direction of
the town. We met not a soul--no lights burned either in the houses or
in the streets--the morning star sparkled alone in the pale azure of
the sky. A cool breeze came from the North. We hardly spoke a word
during our walk. My heart was oppressed, and she too when the moment of
separation approached, seemed to feel, for the first time, how
unnatural was our position. When we reached the house, she clasped me
in her arms with tears in her eyes and held me so for a while before
giving the appointed signal to the porter. "Expect me to-morrow," she
whispered, and disengaging herself from my neck she glided through the
half open door, and I was once more alone in the darkness.

A bitter feeling came over me. So I had to resign her again, my own, my
bride, who had vowed to belong to no one but me; to leave her at the
threshold of a stranger's house, whose door was for ever closed to me.
Here I had to stand at the entrance, and if the master of the house
appeared, should have to hid