ted you to go."

"I know that, and I can't say that I like it. As for being too sick,
perhaps it's the part of a man to go if he dies on the way to the field.
It would encourage the others," he added, smiling faintly.

She ignored the tint from Voltaire in replying: "Nonsense! It would do
no good at all. At any rate, it's too late now."

"Yes, it's too late now."

The sea-sickness which shortly followed formed a diversion from his
accusing thoughts. Each day of the voyage removed them further, and with
the preoccupations of his first days in Europe, his travel to Italy, and
his preparations for a long sojourn in Venice, they had softened to a
pensive sense of self-sacrifice, which took a warmer or a cooler tinge
according as the news from home was good or bad.

II.

He lost no time in going to work in the Marcian Library, and he early
applied to the Austrian authorities for leave to have transcripts made
in the archives. The permission was negotiated by the American consul
(then a young painter of the name of Ferris), who reported a mechanical
facility on the part of the authorities,--as if, he said, they were used
to obliging American historians of Venice. The foreign tyranny which
cast a pathetic glamour over the romantic city had certainly not
appeared to grudge such publicity as Elmore wished to give her heroic
memories, though it was then at its most repressive period, and formed a
check upon the whole life of the place. The tears were hardly yet dry in
the despairing eyes that had seen the French fleet sail away from the
Lido, after Solferino, without firing a shot in behalf of Venice; but
Lombardy, the Duchies, the Sicilies, had all passed to Sardinia, and the
Pope alone represented the old order of native despotism in Italy. At
Venice the Germans seemed tranquilly awaiting the change which should
destroy their system with the rest; and in the meantime there had
occurred one of those impressive pauses, as notable in the lives of
nations as of men, when, after the occurrence of great events, the
forces of action and endurance seem to be gathering themselves against
the stress of the future. The quiet was almost consciously a truce and
not a peace; and this local calm had drawn into it certain elements that
picturesquely and sentimentally heightened the charm of the place. It
was a refuge for many exiled potentates and pretenders; the gondolier
pointed out on the Grand Canal the palaces of the Count of Cham