th, sacrificed, if not wasted; you then bitterly discerned the
blunder of nature that had given you a father when you looked for a
husband. You asked yourself whether you had not gone beyond the duty
of a wife in keeping yourself wholly for a man who was bound up in his
science. Marianna, leave your hand in mine; all I have said is true. And
you looked about you--but now you were in Paris, not in Italy, where men
know how to love----"

"Oh! Let me finish the tale," cried Marianna. "I would rather say things
myself. I will be honest; I feel that I am speaking to my truest friend.
Yes, I was in Paris when all you have expressed so clearly took place
in my mind; but when I saw you I was saved, for I had never met with
the love I had dreamed of from my childhood. My poor dress and my
dwelling-place had hidden me from the eyes of men of your class. A few
young men, whose position did not allow of their insulting me, were all
the more intolerable for the levity with which they treated me. Some
made game of my husband, as if he were merely a ridiculous old man;
others basely tried to win his good graces to betray me; one and all
talked of getting me away from him, and none understood the devotion I
feel for a soul that is so far away from us only because it is so near
heaven, for that friend, that brother, whose handmaid I will always be.

"You alone understood, did you not? the tie that binds me to him. Tell
me that you feel a sincere and disinterested regard for my Paolo--"

"I gladly accept your praises," Andrea interrupted; "but go no further;
do not compel me to contradict you. I love you, Marianna, as we love in
the beautiful country where we both were born, I love you with all my
soul and with all my strength; but before offering you that love, I will
be worthy of yours. I will make a last attempt to give back to you the
man you have loved so long and will love forever. Till success or defeat
is certain, accept without any shame the modest ease I can give you
both. We will go to-morrow and choose a place where he may live.

"Have you such regard for me as will allow you to make me the partner in
your guardianship?"

Marianna, surprised at such magnanimity, held out her hand to the Count,
who went away, trying to evade the civilities of Giardini and his wife.

On the following day Giardini took the Count up to the room where the
Gambaras lodged. Though Marianna fully knew her lover's noble
soul,--for there are n