s trying, however, to select among her
acquaintance another lady in waiting--the more willingly as she is
not pleased with my marriage. Is that a satisfaction to you? I
expect to spend the winter in Rome.

"MARIA CONSUELO DEL FERICE."

This was the letter by which Maria Consuelo announced her marriage to
the father whom she so sincerely hated. For cruelty of language and
expression it was not to be compared with the one she had written to
him after parting with Orsino. But had she known how the news she now
conveyed would affect the old man who was to learn it, her heart might
have softened a little towards him, even after all she had suffered.
Very different were the lines Orsino received from her at the same time.

"My dear Friend--When you read this letter, which I write on the
eve of my marriage, but shall not send till some days have passed,
you must think of me as the wife of Ugo Del Ferice. To-night, I am
still Maria Consuelo. I have something to say to you, and you must
read it patiently, for I shall never say it again--and after all,
it will not be much. Is it right of me to say it? I do not know.
Until to-morrow I have still time to refuse to be married.
Therefore I am still a free agent, and entitled to think freely.
After to-morrow it will be different.

"I wish, dear, that I could tell you all the truth. Perhaps you
would not be ashamed of having loved the daughter of Lucrezia
Ferris. But I cannot tell you all. There are reasons why you had
better never know it. But I will tell you this, for I must say it
once. I love you very dearly. I loved you long ago, I loved you
when I left you in Rome, I have loved you ever since, and I am
afraid that I shall love you until I die.

"It is not foolish of me to write the words, though it may be
wrong. If I love you, it is because I know you. We shall meet
before long, and then meet, perhaps, hundreds of times, and more,
for I am to live in Rome. I know that you will be all you should
be, or I would not speak now as I never spoke before, at the moment
when I am raising an impassable barrier between us by my own free
will. If you ever loved me--and you did--you will respect that
barrier in deed and word, and even in thought. You will remember
only that I loved you with all my heart on the day before my
marriage. You