ril, the beautiful April of Southern Italy, was half-way spent before
the Villa Camellia broke up for the holidays. There were the usual
term-end examinations, at which distressed damsels, with agitated minds
and ink-stained fingers, sat at desks furnished with piles of foolscap,
and cudgeled their brains to supply facts to fill the sheets of blank
paper; there was the reading out of results, with congratulations to
those who had succeeded, and glum looks from Miss Rodgers to those who
had failed; then followed the bringing down of boxes, the joyful flutter
of packing, the last breakfast, and the final universal exodus.

"Good-by, dear old thing!"

"Do miss me a little!"

"Hope you'll have a ripping time!"

"Be a sport and write to me, won't you?"

"Hold me down, somebody, I'm ready to fizz over!"

"You won't forget me, dearie? All right! Just so long as we know!"

Lorna, who had anticipated previous vacations as simply a relief from
the toil of lessons, went home to Naples with quite altered feelings
from those of former occasions. She was determined that, if it possibly
lay in her power, she would make her father enjoy the time she spent
with him. In spite of injustice and cruel wrong there might surely be
some happy hours together, and she would win him to live in the present,
instead of continually brooding over the past. The immense, terrible
pathos of the situation appealed to the deepest chords in her nature.
Her father was still in the prime of his years, a handsome, clever man,
who might have done much in the world. Was it yet too late? Lorna
sometimes had faint, budding hopes that in some fresh country his
wrecked career might be righted, and that he might make a new start and
rise triumphant over the ruin of other days. He was glad to see her.
There was no doubt about that. The knowledge that she now shared his
secret placed her on a different footing. It was a relief to him to have
some one in whom he could confide, some one who knew the reason for his
hermit mode of living, and above all who believed in his innocence.
Insensibly Lorna's presence acted upon him for good. The nervous, hunted
look began to fade out of his eyes, and sometimes he actually smiled as
she recounted the doings of the Camellia Buds, or other happenings at
school.

"Daddy!" she said once, "couldn't we go out to Australia or America, or
somewhere where nobody would know us, and make a fresh life for
ourselves?"

A gleam of h