might have envied. It
was written like a diary, and not till its conclusion did she realize
for whom it was meant.

"Irma, darling Irma, this letter is for you. I almost forgot I have a
daughter. It will make you unhappy, but I want you to know everything,
and you cannot learn things too soon. God bless you, my dearest, and
save you. God bless your miserable mother."

Fortunately Mrs. Herriton was in when the letter arrived. She seized
it and opened it in her bedroom. Another moment, and Irma's placid
childhood would have been destroyed for ever.

Lilia received a brief note from Harriet, again forbidding direct
communication between mother and daughter, and concluding with formal
condolences. It nearly drove her mad.

"Gently! gently!" said her husband. They were sitting together on the
loggia when the letter arrived. He often sat with her now, watching her
for hours, puzzled and anxious, but not contrite.

"It's nothing." She went in and tore it up, and then began to write--a
very short letter, whose gist was "Come and save me."

It is not good to see your wife crying when she writes--especially if
you are conscious that, on the whole, your treatment of her has been
reasonable and kind. It is not good, when you accidentally look over her
shoulder, to see that she is writing to a man. Nor should she shake her
fist at you when she leaves the room, under the impression that you are
engaged in lighting a cigar and cannot see her.

Lilia went to the post herself. But in Italy so many things can be
arranged. The postman was a friend of Gino's, and Mr. Kingcroft never
got his letter.

So she gave up hope, became ill, and all through the autumn lay in bed.
Gino was distracted. She knew why; he wanted a son. He could talk and
think of nothing else. His one desire was to become the father of a man
like himself, and it held him with a grip he only partially understood,
for it was the first great desire, the first great passion of his life.
Falling in love was a mere physical triviality, like warm sun or cool
water, beside this divine hope of immortality: "I continue." He gave
candles to Santa Deodata, for he was always religious at a crisis, and
sometimes he went to her himself and prayed the crude uncouth demands of
the simple. Impetuously he summoned all his relatives back to bear him
company in his time of need, and Lilia saw strange faces flitting past
her in the darkened room.

"My love!" he would say, "my deares