te low, while his hand swept
the floor with an imaginary cap. Malice had lighted up his features, and
finding, after the first burst of sarcasm, that it was vain to indulge
it toward an absent person, he altered his style. "Look," he cried to
Emilia, "it is Marini stops you and old Belloni--a conspirator, aha! Is
it for an artist to conspire, and be carbonaro, and kiss books, and, mon
Dieu! bon! it is Marini plays me zis trick. I mark him. I mark him, I
say! He is paid by young Pole. I hold zat family in my hand, I say! So
I go to be met by you, and on I go to Italy. I get a letter at
Milano,--'Marini stop me at Dover,' signed 'Giuseppe Belloni.' Ze letter
have been spied into by ze Austrians. I am watched--I am dogged--I
am imprisoned--I am examined. 'You know zis Giuseppe Belloni?' 'Meine
Herrn! he was to come. I leave word at Paris for him, at Geneve, at
Stresa, to bring his daughter to ze Conservatoire, for which I pay. She
has a voice--or she had.'"

"Has!" exclaimed Emilia.

"Had!" Mr. Pericles repeated.

"She has!"

"Zen sing!" with which thunder of command, Mr. Pericles gave up his
vindictive narration of the points of his injuries sustained, and,
pitching into a chair, pressed his fingers to his temples, frowning
attention. His eyes were on the floor. Presently he glanced up, and saw
Emilia's chest rising quickly. No voice issued.

"It is to commence," cried Mr. Pericles. "Hein! now sing."

Emilia laid her hand under her throat. "Not now! Oh, not now! When you
have told me what those Austrians did to you. I want to hear; I am very
anxious to hear. And what they said of my father. How could he have come
to Milan without a passport? He had only a passport to Paris."

"And at Paris I leave instructions for ze procuration of a passport over
Lombardy. Am I not Antonio Pericles Agriolopoulos? Sing, I say!"

"Ah, but what voices you must have heard in Italy," said Emilia softly.
"I am afraid to sing after them. Si: I dare not."

She panted, little in keeping with the cajolery of her tones, but she
had got Mr. Pericles upon a theme serious to his mind.

"Not a voice! not one!" he cried, stamping his foot. "All is French. I
go twice wizin six monz, and if I go to a goose-yard I hear better. Oh,
yes! it is tune--'ta-ta-ta--ti-ti-ti--to!' and of ze heart--where is
zat? Mon Dieu! I despair. I see music go dead. Let me hear you, Sandra."

His enthusiasm had always affected Emilia, and painfully since her love
h