own there. 'Sei
buon' Italiano?" you said. "And that is how I have found you. Sei buon'
Italiana?"

Emilia let her hand rest in Merthyr's, wondering to think that there
should be no absolute darkness for a creature to escape into while
living. A trembling came on her. "Let me look over at the water," she
said; and Merthyr, who trusted her even in that extremity, allowed her
to lean forward, and felt her grasp grow moist in his, till she turned
back with shudders, giving him both her hands. "A drowned woman looks so
dreadful!" Her speech was faint as she begged to be taken away from that
place. Merthyr put his hand to her arm-pit, sustaining her steps. As
they neared the level where men were, she looked behind her and realized
the black terrors she had just been blindly handling. Fright sped her
limbs for a second or two, and then her whole weight hung upon Merthyr.
He held her in both arms, thinking that she had swooned, but she
murmured: "Have you heard that my voice has gone?"

"If you have suffered, I do not wonder," he said.

"I am useless. My voice is dead."

"Useless to your friends? Tush, my little Emilia! Sandra mia! Don't you
know that while you love your friends that's all they want of you?"

"Oh!" she moaned; "the gas-lamp hurts me. What a noise there is!"

"We shall soon get away from the noise."

"No; I like it; but not the light. Oh, my feet!--why are you walking
still? What friends?"

"For instance, myself."

"You knew of my wandering about London! It makes me believe in heaven. I
can't bear to think of being unseen."

"This morning," said Merthyr, "I saw the policeman in whose house you
have been staying."

Emilia bowed her head to the mystery by which this friend was endowed
to be cognizant of her actions. "I feel that I have not seen the streets
for years. If it were not for you I should fall down.--Oh! do you
understand that my voice has quite gone?"

Merthyr perceived her anxiety to be that she might not betaken on
doubtful terms. "Your hand hasn't," he said, pressing it, and so
gratified her with a concrete image of something that she could still
bestow upon a friend. To this she clung while the noisy wheels bore her
through London, till her weak body failed to keep courage in her breast,
and she wept and came closer to Merthyr. He who supposed that her recent
despair and present tears were for the loss of her lover, gave happily
more comfort than he took. "When old gentlemen choose t