nged,
and as if it had been impossible to drown himself in his bare head, he
set out in chase of his hat, which rolled and gamboled away, and escaped
from his clutch whenever he stooped for it, till a final whiff of wind
flung it up and tossed it over the bridge into the river, where he
helplessly watched it floating down the flood, till it was carried out of
sight.

XXV.

Gregory did not sleep, and he did not find peace in the prayers he put up
for guidance. He tried to think of some one with whom he might take
counsel; but he knew no one in Florence except the parents of his pupil,
and they were impossible. He felt himself abandoned to the impulse which
he dreaded, in going to Clementina, and he went without hope, willing to
suffer whatever penalty she should visit upon him, after he had disavowed
Belsky's action, and claimed the responsibility for it.

He was prepared for her refusal to see him; he had imagined her wounded
and pathetic; he had fancied her insulted and indignant; but she met him
eagerly and with a mystifying appeal in her welcome. He began at once,
without attempting to bridge the time since they had met with any
formalities.

"I have come to speak to you about--that--Russian, about Baron Belsky--"

"Yes, yes!" she returned, anxiously. "Then you have hea'd"

"He came to me last night, and--I want to say that I feel myself to blame
for what he has done."

"You?"

"Yes; I. I never spoke of you by name to him; I didn't dream of his ever
seeing you, or that he would dare to speak to you of what I told him. But
I believe he meant no wrong; and it was I who did the harm, whether I
authorized it or not."

"Yes, yes!" she returned, with the effect of putting his words aside as
something of no moment. "Have they head anything more?"

"How, anything more?" he returned, in a daze.

"Then, don't you know? About his falling into the river? I know he didn't
drown himself."

Gregory shook his head. "When--what makes them think"--He stopped and
stared at her.

"Why, they know that he went down to the Ponte Trinity last night;
somebody saw him going: And then that peasant found his hat with his name
in it in the drift-wood below the Cascine--"

"Yes," said Gregory, lifelessly. He let his arms drop forward, and his
helpless hands hang over his knees; his gaze fell from her face to the
floor.

Neither spoke for a time that seemed long, and then it was Clementina who
spoke. "But it isn't true!"