mind my telling
it to you--to you if to no other--before these relics of the past.

"When Lampron was a young man travelling in Italy he fell in love with
this young girl, whose portrait he was painting. He loved her, perhaps
without confessing it to himself, certainly without avowing it to her.
Such is the way of timid and humble men of heart, men whose love is
nearly always misconstrued when it ceases to be unnoticed. My friend
risked the happiness of his life, fearlessly, without calculation--and
lost it. A day came when Rafaella Dannegianti was carried off by her
parents, who shuddered at the thought of her stooping to a painter, even
though he were a genius."

"So she died?"

"A year later. He never got over it. Even while I speak to you, he in his
loneliness is pondering and weeping over these very lines which you have
just read without a suspicion of the depth of their bitterness."

"He has known bereavement," said she; "I pity him with all my heart."

Her eyes filled with tears. She repeated the words, whose meaning was now
clear to her, "A to Rafaella." Then she knelt down softly before the
mournful inscription. I saw her bow her head. Jeanne was praying.

It was touching to see the young girl, whom chance had placed before this
simple testimony of a sorrow now long past, deeply moved by the sad tale
of love, filled with tender pity for the dead Rafaella, her fellow in
youth and beauty and perhaps in destiny, finding in her heart the tender
impulse to kneel without a word, as if beside the grave of a friend. The
daylight's last rays streaming in through the window illumined her bowed
head.

I drew back, with a touch of awe.

M. Charnot appeared.

He went up to his daughter and tapped her on the shoulder. She rose with
a blush.

"What are you doing there?" he said.

Then he adjusted his glasses and read the Italian inscription.

"You really take unnecessary trouble in kneeling down to decipher a thing
like that. You can see at once that it's a modern panel, and of no value.
Monsieur," he added, turning to me, "I do not know what your plans are,
but unless you intend to sleep at Desio, we must be off, for the night is
falling."

We left the villa.

Out of doors it was still light, but with the afterglow. The sun was out
of sight, but the earth was still enveloped, as it were, in a haze of
luminous dust.

M. Charnot pulled out his watch.

"Seven minutes past eight. What time does the last tra