ts
dwelt on another painful passage in the letter from Italy which she had
not mentioned. But, in spite of her silence, her misery was evident.
Noemi pressed her lips to Jeanne's forehead, and letting them rest there
in silence, touched by the secret sorrow which accepted her sympathy.
Then she slowly drew away from the long embrace as if fearful of
severing some delicate thread which bound their two souls together.

"Perhaps that good old man knew where--Do you think he was in
communication with ----" she murmured.

Jeanne shook her head in denial. During the September following that
sad July, Jeanne's unfortunate husband had died in Venice of delirium
tremens. She had gone to the Villa Flores in October, and there in that
same garden where the Marchesa Scremin had once laid bare her poor,
suffering old heart to Don Giuseppe, had expressed a desire that Piero
should be told of her husband's death, should realise that he might
henceforth think of her without a shadow of guilt, if indeed he still
wished to think of her at all. Don Giuseppe first gently urged her
not to abandon herself to this dream, and then avowed to her in all
sincerity that no tidings of Piero had reached him since the day of his
disappearance.

Fearing other questions, and unwilling any longer to expose her wound
to the touch of unskilled fingers, Jeanne sought to change the subject.
"Tell me about your monk," she said. But just at that moment Carlino's
voice was heard in the hall.

"Not now," replied Noemi. "To-night."

Carlino came in, a white silk muffler round his neck, grumbling at the
Lac d'Armour, which he pronounced a huge fraud, which only filled the
air with odious, poisonous, little creatures. "To be sure." said he,
"love itself is no better." Noemi would not allow him to talk of love.
Why should he discuss a subject which he did not understand? Carlino
thanked her. He had been on the point of falling in love with her; had
greatly feared such a catastrophe. Her words, coming as they did so
soon after her appearance in a certain offensive hat, with an ungraceful
feather, and after some rather bourgeois expressions of admiration for
that poor, tiresome devil Mendelssohn, had saved him _a jamais._ The
two sparred gaily for some time, and, in spite of his poisoned tonsils,
Carlino was in such high spirits that Noemi congratulated him on the
subject of his novel. "It must be making rapid progress," she said.

"Nonsense," answered the aut