believe, for my sake than his own. Thus, in the
bitter silent hours of pain and penitence, when no hand but mine
approached his lips or smoothed his pillow, the old friendship came back
with even more than its old trust and faithfulness. He forgave me, fully
and freely; and I would thankfully have given my life for him.

At length there came one bright spring morning, when, dismissed as
convalescent, he tottered out through the hospital gates, leaning on my
arm, and feeble as an infant. He was not cured; neither, as I then
learned to my horror and anguish, was it possible that he ever could be
cured. He might live, with care, for some years; but the lungs were
injured beyond hope of remedy, and a strong or healthy man he could never
be again. These, spoken aside to me, were the parting words of the chief
physician, who advised me to take him further south without delay.

I took him to a little coast-town called Rocca, some thirty miles beyond
Genoa--a sheltered lonely place along the Riviera, where the sea was even
bluer than the sky, and the cliffs were green with strange tropical
plants, cacti, and aloes, and Egyptian palms. Here we lodged in the
house of a small tradesman; and Mat, to use his own words, "set to work
at getting well in good earnest." But, alas! it was a work which no
earnestness could forward. Day after day he went down to the beach, and
sat for hours drinking the sea air and watching the sails that came and
went in the offing. By-and-by he could go no further than the garden of
the house in which we lived. A little later, and he spent his days on a
couch beside the open window, waiting patiently for the end. Ay, for the
end! It had come to that. He was fading fast, waning with the waning
summer, and conscious that the Reaper was at hand. His whole aim now was
to soften the agony of my remorse, and prepare me for what must shortly
come.

"I would not live longer, if I could," he said, lying on his couch one
summer evening, and looking up to the stars. "If I had my choice at this
moment, I would ask to go. I should like Gianetta to know that I forgave
her."

"She shall know it," I said, trembling suddenly from head to foot.

He pressed my hand.

"And you'll write to father?"

"I will."

I had drawn a little back, that he might not see the tears raining down
my cheeks; but he raised himself on his elbow, and looked round.

"Don't fret, Ben," he whispered; laid his head back wea