p. He found Julie's note.
She begged him, in Italian, which they had been studying together for
some months, to release her from the agonizing uncertainty in regard to
his mood and in regard to what he intended to do. She was only going
out to make a visit to Irene, and then she would stay at home and
expect him. The note closed with a few loving words and another
earnest request for him to come to her that evening, all of which did
him unspeakable good.

But he remained firm in his determination not to go to her until he had
cleared up the whole matter.

He sat down on the sofa and had just begun to draw up a small table, in
order to write her a few comforting lines, when a quick knock on the
door interrupted him.

He was startled to see Frances's nurse come in. This little woman, who
had a houseful of children and a head full of cares, seldom visited
him--and never without her little charge.

Her black eyes, usually so cheery, began to spy anxiously about in
every corner of the studio, the moment she had entered it.

"Is your child here?" she stammered breathlessly.

"With me? No. What made you think so?"

He stepped up to her hastily. "What is the matter, my good woman? Did
you send little Frances here?"

"Not here! Oh! Heavens!--but perhaps she may be up-stairs with Fraeulein
Angelica--without your knowing about it. I will go right up--"

"Fraeulein Angelica is not up-stairs; I am all alone in the house. Tell
me, for God's sake--"

He stopped suddenly; a horrible suspicion paralyzed his tongue.

The exhausted woman sank down on the pedestal of the great group, and
wiped her eyes.

"The child--?" he asked at length, with great difficulty.

She looked up at him with supplicating eyes.

"Don't kill me! I don't know where it is--some one has taken it
away--my anxiety drove me here--I have done all I can!--"

She seemed to expect nothing less than that he would strike her dead
after hearing this confession.

But, as he stood motionless, she mustered up courage to tell him, in a
disconnected way, what had happened. She had gone into the city after
dinner, and her old mother had, as usual, taken charge of the children.
Immediately after she went out--as if she had only been waiting for
that--a strange lady had come to the house.

"Young, with blue eyes?" interrupted the sculptor, with difficulty
unclinching his teeth.

No. An elderly lady, not far from fifty, dressed in black and heavily
veiled. She