much reliance on him."

It was nearly six o'clock when Pierre got back to the Boccanera mansion.
As a rule, he passed in all modesty down the lane, and entered by the
little side door, a key of which had been given him. But he had that
morning received a letter from M. de la Choue, and desired to communicate
it to Benedetta. So he ascended the grand staircase, and on reaching the
anteroom was surprised to find nobody there. As a rule, whenever the
man-servant went out Victorine installed herself in his place and busied
herself with some needlework. Her chair was there, and Pierre even
noticed some linen which she had left on a little table when probably
summoned elsewhere. Then, as the door of the first reception-room was
ajar, he at last ventured in. It was almost night there already, the
twilight was softly dying away, and all at once the young priest stopped
short, fearing to take another step, for, from the room beyond, the large
yellow _salon_, there came a murmur of feverish, distracted words, ardent
entreaties, fierce panting, a rustling and a shuffling of footsteps. And
suddenly Pierre no longer hesitated, urged on despite himself by the
conviction that the sounds he heard were those of a struggle, and that
some one was hard pressed.

And when he darted into the further room he was stupefied, for Dario was
there, no longer showing the degenerate elegance of the last scion of an
exhausted race, but maddened by the hot, frantic blood of the Boccaneras
which had bubbled up within him. He had clasped Benedetta by the
shoulders in a frenzy of passion and was scorching her face with his hot,
entreating words: "But since you say, my darling, that it is all over,
that your marriage will never be dissolved--oh! why should we be wretched
for ever! Love me as you do love me, and let me love you--let me love
you!"

But the Contessina, with an indescribable expression of tenderness and
suffering on her tearful face, repulsed him with her outstretched arms,
she likewise evincing a fierce energy as she repeated: "No, no; I love
you, but it must not, it must not be."

At that moment, amidst the roar of his despair, Dario became conscious
that some one was entering the room. He turned and gazed at Pierre with
an expression of stupefied insanity, scarce able even to recognise him.
Then he carried his two hands to his face, to his bloodshot eyes and his
cheeks wet with scalding tears, and fled, heaving a terrible,
pain-fraught