s like a child in her joy, blushing
and half afraid.

He ran his hand through her hair and kissed her forehead. She threw back
her head that she might put her lips to his forehead in return, and he
kissed her full, round throat.

Then they exchanged rings as the sign of their eternal union. When she
put her diamond ring, set in gold, on to his finger, he looked grave and
even sad; but when he put his plain silver one on to hers, she lifted up
her glorified hand to the light, and kissed and kissed it.

They began to talk in low tones, as if some one had been listening. It
was the whispering of their hearts, for the angel of happy love has no
voice louder than a whisper. She asked him to say again that he loved
her, but as soon as he began to say it she stopped his mouth with a
kiss.

They talked of their love. She was sure she had loved him before he
loved her, and when he said that he had loved her always, she protested
in that case he did not love her at all.

They rose at length to close the windows, and side by side, his arm
about her waist, her head leaning lightly on his shoulder, they stood
for a moment looking out. The mother of cities lay below in its
lightsome whiteness, and over the ridge of its encircling hills the glow
of the departing sun was rising in vaporous tints of amber and crimson
into the transparent blue, with the dome of St. Peter's, like a balloon
ready to rise into a celestial sky.

"A storm is coming," he said, looking at the colours in the sunset.

"It has come and gone," she whispered, and then his arm folded closer
about her waist.

It took him half-an-hour to say adieu. After the last kiss and the last
handshake, their arms would stretch out to the utmost limit, and then
close again for another and another and yet another embrace.

XV

When at length Rossi was gone, Roma ran into her bedroom to look at her
face in the glass. The golden complexion was heightened by a bright spot
on either cheek, and a teardrop was glistening in the corner of each of
her eyes.

She went back to the boudoir. David Rossi was no longer there, but the
room seemed to be full of his presence. She sat in the chair again, and
again she stood by the window. At length she opened her desk and wrote a
letter:--

"DEAREST,--You are only half-an-hour gone, and here I am sending
this letter after you, like a handkerchief you had forgotten. I
have one or two thing