e you continue your strange
accusations, tell me the origin of them. My love has never wandered from
you."

"Yet you are seeking a wife in the heiress of Della Ripa! Ah, Sir Count,
your complexion changes now!" Gina Montani was right: the flush of
excitement on his face had turned to paleness. "Your long and repeated
journeys, for days together, are now explained," she continued. "It was
well to tell me business took you from home."

"I have had business to transact with the Prince of Della Ripa," he
replied, boldly, recovering his equanimity.

"And to combine business with pleasure," she answered, with a curl of
her delicate lip, "you have been wont to linger by the side of his
daughter."

"And what though I have sometimes seen the Lady Adelaide?" he rejoined.
"I have no love for her."

Gina was silent for awhile, as if struggling with her strong emotion,
and then spoke calmly. "My mother has enjoined me, times out of mind,
not to suffer your continued visits here, for that you would never marry
me. You never will, Giovanni."

"Turn to my own faith, Gina," he exclaimed, with emotion, "and I will
marry thee to-morrow."

"They say you are about to marry Adelaide of Della Ripa," she replied,
passing by his own words with a gesture.

"They deceive you, Gina."

"_You_ deceive me," she answered, passionately; "you, upon whose
veracity I would have staked my life. And this is to be my reward!"

"You are like all your sex, Gina--when their jealousy is aroused,
good-by to reason; one and all are alike."

"Can you say that in this case my suspicions are unfounded?"

"Gina," he answered, as he once again would have folded her to his
heart, "let us not waste the hours in vain recriminations: I have no
love for Adelaide of Della Ripa." And, alas! for the credulity of woman,
Gina Montani lent ear once more to his honeyed persuasions, until she
deemed them true: and they were again happy together, as of old. But
this security was not to last long for her. As the weeks and months flew
on, the visits of the count to her mother's house grew few and far
between. He made long stays at the territory of Della Ripa, and people
told it as a fact, no longer disputable, that he was about to make a
bride of the Lady Adelaide.

They had come strangers into Tuscany, the Signora Montani and her
daughter, but a year or two before. The signora was in deep grief for
the loss of her husband, and they lived the most secluded life, makin