sdain. The Italian with shame and wrath wrestled against
himself, but in vain: the cold eye that was fixed upon him was as a
spell, which the fiend within him could not rebel against or resist.
Mechanically he moved to the door,--then turning round, he shook his
clenched hand at Maltravers, and, with a wild, maniacal laugh, rushed
from the apartment.

CHAPTER VI.

"On some fond breast the parting soul relies."--GRAY.

NOT a day passed in which Maltravers was absent from the side of
Florence. He came early, he went late. He subsided into his former
character of an accepted suitor, without a word of explanation with Lord
Saxingham. That task was left to Florence. She doubtless performed it
well, for his lordship seemed satisfied though grave, and, almost for
the first time in his life, sad. Maltravers never reverted to the cause
of their unhappy dissension. Nor from that night did he once give way
to whatever might be his more agonised and fierce emotions--he never
affected to reproach himself--he never bewailed with a vain despair
their approaching separation. Whatever it cost him, he stood collected
and stoical in the intense power of his self control. He had but
one object, one desire, one hope--to save the last hours of Florence
Lascelles from every pang--to brighten and smooth the passage across
the Solemn Bridge. His forethought, his presence of mind, his care,
his tenderness, never forsook him for an instant: they went beyond
the attributes of men, they went into all the fine, the indescribable
minutiae by which woman makes herself, "in pain and anguish," the
"ministering angel." It was as if he had nerved and braced his whole
nature to one duty--as if that duty were more felt than affection
itself--as if he were resolved that Florence should not remember that
_she had no mother_!

And, oh, then, how Florence loved him! how far more luxurious, in its
grateful and clinging fondness, was that love, than the wild and jealous
fire of their earlier connection! Her own character, as is often the
case in lingering illness, became incalculably more gentle and softened
down, as the shadows closed around it. She loved to make him read and
talk to her--and her ancient poetry of thought now grew mellowed, as
it were, into religion, which is indeed poetry with a stronger wing....
There was a world beyond the grave--there was life out of the chrysalis
sleep of death--they would yet be united. And Maltravers, who was a