unded on the
staircase, and the color rushed to her cheeks.

"I have just said goodbye to your father," said Brian. "I am leaving
Florence this morning. You must forgive me for having written last
night. I ought not to have done it, and I understood your silence."

He spoke calmly, in the repressed voice of a man who holds "passion in
a leash." Erica was thankful to have the last sight of him thus calm and
strong and self-restrained. It was a nobler side of love than that which
had inspired his letter nobler because freer from thought of self.

"I am so glad you will have Donovan," she said. "Goodbye."

He took her hand in his, pressed it, and turned away without a word.

CHAPTER XXXIII. "Right Onward"

Therefore my Hope arose
From out her swound and gazed upon Thy face.
And, meeting there that soft subduing look
Which Peter's spirit shook
Sunk downward in a rapture to embrace
Thy pierced hands and feet with kisses close,
And prayed Thee to assist her evermore
To "reach the things before." E. B. Browning

"I'm really thankful it is the last time I shall have to get this
abominable paper money," said Raeburn, coming down the stairs. "Just
count these twos and fives for me, dear; fifteen of each there should
be."

At that moment Brian had just passed the tall, white column disappearing
into the street which leads to the Borgo Ogni Santi. Erica turned to
begin her new chapter of life heavily handicapped in the race for once
more that deadly faintness crept over her, a numbing, stifling pressure,
as if Pain in physical form had seized her heart in his cold clasp. But
with all her strength she fought against it, forcing herself to count
the hateful little bits of paper, and thankful that her father was too
much taken up with the arrangement of his purse to notice her.

"I am glad we happened to meet Brian," he remarked; "he goes by an
earlier train that I thought. Now, little son Eric, where shall we go?
We'll have a day of unmitigated pleasure and throw care to the winds.
I'll even forswear Vieusseux; there won't be much news today."

"Let us take the Pitti Palace first," said Erica, knowing that the fresh
air and the walk would be the only chance for her.

She walked very quickly with the feeling that, if she were still for a
single moment, she should fall down. And, luckily, Raeburn thought her
paleness accounted for by yesterday's headache and the wakeful night,