n wiped them across his brow. He took off his hat and
faced the evening breeze from the sea. He cried to the gondoliers that
they were lazy--that the gondola did not move. It was darting like a wind
over the water.

"The next day they returned to the island--and the next. But at sunset,
Luigi did not come to the gondola. Camillo waited, and sat until it was
quite dark. Then he went through the garden of the convent, and inquired
for the painter. They sought him in the parlor. He was not there. The
abbess was not there. Upon the easel stood her portrait partly
finished--strangely beautiful. Camillo had followed into the room, and
stood suddenly before the picture. He had not seen Sulpizia since she was
a child. Even his fancy had scarcely dreamed of a face so beautiful. His
knees trembled as he stood, and he fell before it in the attitude of
prayer. The last red flash of daylight fell upon the picture. The eyes
smiled--the lips were slightly parted--a glow of awakening life trembled
all through the features.

"The strong man's heart was melted, and the nuns beheld him kneeling and
weeping before the portrait of their abbess.

"But where was she?

"Nobody knew. There was no clue--except that the gondola of the convent
was gone.

"Camillo took the portrait and stepped into his gondola. He returned to
the city, to the palace of Sulpizia's parents. Slowly he went up the great
staircase, dark and silent, up which his eager steps had followed the
flying feet of Sulpizia. He entered the saloon slowly, like a man who
carries a heavy burden--but rather in his heart than in his hands.

"'It is all that remains to you of your daughter,' said he in a low voice,
throwing back his cloak, and revealing the marvellous beauty of their
child's portrait to the amazed parents. Then came the agony--a child
lost--a friend false.

"Camillo returned to us and told the tale. I felt my heart wither and grow
old. My mother was grieved in her heart for her son's sorrow--in her pride
for its kind and method. Fiora did not smile any more. Her step was no
longer bounding upon the floor and the stairs, and the year afterward she
married the Marchese Cicada.

"The next day, Camillo returned to the island. The abbess had not
returned, nor had any tidings been received. Only the gondola had been
found in the morning in its usual place. The days passed. A new abbess was
chosen. The church did not dare to curse the fugitive, for there was no
proof