r persuade you to ask for your
freedom unless I could talk to you alone where you must hear me; the
chance came unexpectedly and I took it, for it would never have come
again. I had no other place, I had not thought of what I should say,
but I was ready to risk everything, all for all--as I have done----'

'You have, indeed,' the nun said slowly, while he hesitated.

'And I have failed. Forgive me if you can. It was for love of you and
for your sake.'

'For my sake, you should be true and brave and kind,' answered the
Sister. 'But you ask forgiveness, and I forgive you, and I will try to
forget, too. If I cannot do that, I can at least believe that you were
mad, for no man in his senses would think of doing what you
threatened! If you wish to live so that I may tell God in my prayers
that I would have been your wife if I could, and that I hope to meet
you in heaven--then, for my sake, be a man, and not a weakling willing
to stoop to the most contemptible villainy to cheat a woman. Your
brother was nearly killed in doing his duty here and you have taken
his place. Make it your true calling, as I have made it mine to nurse
the sick. At any moment, either of us may be called to face danger,
till we die; we can feel that we are living the same life, for the
same hope. Is that nothing?'

'The same life? A nun and a soldier?'

'Why not, if we risk it that others may be safe?'

'And in the same hope? Ah no, Angela! That is where it all breaks
down!'

'No. You will live to believe it is there that all begins. Now let me
go.'

Severi shook his head sadly; she was so unapproachably good, he
thought--what chance had a mere man like himself of really
understanding her splendid, saintly delusion?

Pica had turned the key on the outside and had taken it out, obeying
his orders; but Giovanni had another like it in his pocket and now
unlocked and opened the door. The nun went out, drawing her black hood
quite over her head so that it concealed her face, and Giovanni
followed her downstairs and held an umbrella over her while she got
into the carriage, for it was still raining.

'Good-night,' he said, as Pica shut the door.

He did not hear her answer and the brougham drove away. When he could
no longer see the lights, he went upstairs again, and after he had
shut the door he stood a long time just where she had stood last. The
revolver was still on the chair under the bright electric light. He
fancied that the peculiar f