oom, while Grey sat by her patient; thus he
was alone with Bessie, when she startled him with the question, "Why
don't you kiss me, Neil?"

Bending over her, he said:

"Would you like me to kiss you Bessie?"

"Ye-es," she answered, faintly, and then Grey pressed his lips to hers
in a long, passionate kiss, with no thought that there was danger and
possible death in the hot breath which he felt upon his cheek as he laid
it against hers.

He thought of nothing but the sick girl before him, whom he had kissed,
and whom he now knew that he loved better than anything it life; ay,
whom he had loved since the Christmas-time when he first looked into her
blue eyes and played for the knot of ribbon she wore at her throat.

Grey had seen much of the world, and many bright eyes had flashed upon
him glances which mean so much, but which had never affected him.
Nothing, in fact, had touched him until he saw Bessie McPherson, whom he
had remembered always, and sometimes to himself he had said:

"I will see her again. I will know her better, and if--"

He never got farther than that "if," though he was conscious that in all
his pictures of a future home there was a face like hers as he had seen
it in the old stone house at Stoneleigh. He had not sought her again,
but he had found her unsought--sick, helpless, dying perhaps, and he
knew how much he loved her, and how dark would be the future if she were
snatched from him.

"Oh, Heaven, I can't let her die!" he cried; and, falling on his knees
by the bedside, he prayed long and earnestly that she might live for
him, who loved her so devotedly.

This was the night before the second day of the carnival, when Grey felt
obliged to leave her for a few hours and do duty at his Aunt Lucy's
side. Miss Grey had that morning heard rumors of fever in Rome, and with
her fears aroused she signified to Grey her wish to leave the city the
following Monday.

"You are looking very thin," she said, regarding him anxiously as he
bent over her chair, "and I am not feeling very well myself. It is time
we were out of Rome I am sure it is not healthy here."

She did look pale, Grey noticed, and, as his first duty was to her, he
signified his readiness to leave with her on Monday.

"I shall know the worst by that time," he thought "If she is better, I
can go with a good heart; if she is dead, it matters little where I am.
All places will be the same to me."

And so it was settled that with his