fresh medical advice has been sent
for," he said.

"Another doctor has arrived from Florence to-day," replied the porter.

Mademoiselle Virginie, missing her friend suddenly, turned back toward
the palace to look after her, and was rather surprised to see Brigida
slip out of the wicket-gate. There were two oil lamps burning on pillars
outside the doorway, and their light glancing on the Italian's face, as
she passed under them, showed that she was smiling.

CHAPTER II.

While the Marchesa Melani was making inquiries at the gate of the
palace, Fabio was sitting alone in the apartment which his wife usually
occupied when she was in health. It was her favorite room, and had been
prettily decorated, by her own desire, with hangings in yellow satin and
furniture of the same color. Fabio was now waiting in it, to hear the
report of the doctors after their evening visit.

Although Maddalena Lomi had not been his first love, and although he
had married her under circumstances which are generally and rightly
considered to afford few chances of lasting happiness in wedded life,
still they had lived together through the one year of their union
tranquilly, if not fondly. She had molded herself wisely to his peculiar
humors, had made the most of his easy disposition; and, when her quick
temper had got the better of her, had seldom hesitated in her
cooler moments to acknowledge that she had been wrong. She had been
extravagant, it is true, and had irritated him by fits of unreasonable
jealousy; but these were faults not to be thought of now. He could only
remember that she was the mother of his child, and that she lay ill but
two rooms away from him--dangerously ill, as the doctors had unwillingly
confessed on that very day.

The darkness was closing in upon him, and he took up the handbell to
ring for lights. When the servant entered there was genuine sorrow in
his face, genuine anxiety in his voice, as he inquired for news from the
sick-room. The man only answered that his mistress was still asleep, and
then withdrew, after first leaving a sealed letter on the table by his
master's side. Fabio summoned him back into the room, and asked when the
letter had arrived. He replied that it had been delivered at the palace
two days since, and that he had observed it lying unopened on a desk in
his master's study.

Left alone again, Fabio remembered that the letter had arrived at a time
when the first dangerous symptoms of his w