ll my thoughts. At your side, during the
few days since I first met you, I have had moments of oblivion so
complete as almost to make me feel that I was back in the first days of
my convalescence, when the sense of another world was still present with
me. The past, the future were obliterated--as if the former had never
been, and the latter never would be. The whole world was without form
and void. Then, something like a dream, dim but stupendous, rose upon my
soul--a fluttering veil, now impenetrable, now transparent, and yielding
intermittent glimpses of a splendid but unattainable treasure. What did
you know or care about me in such moments? Doubtless your spirit was far
away from me. And yet, your mere bodily presence was sufficient to
intoxicate me--I felt it flowing through my veins like blood, taking
hold upon my soul with superhuman force----'

She sat silent and motionless, gazing straight before her, her figure
erect, her hands rigidly clasped in her lap, in the attitude of one who
makes a supreme effort to brace himself against his own weakness. Only
her mouth--the expression of the lips she vainly strove to keep
firm--betrayed a sort of anguished rapture.

'I dare not tell you all I feel.--Maria, Maria, can you forgive me?--say
that you forgive me.'

Two little hands came suddenly from behind the seat and clasped
themselves over the mother's eyes, and a voice panting with fun and
mischief cried--

'Guess who it is--guess who it is!'

She smiled, and allowed herself to be drawn backwards by Delfina's
clinging fingers, and instantly, with preternatural clearness, Andrea
saw that smile wipe away all the obscure, delicious pain from her lips,
efface every sign that might be construed into an avowal, put to flight
the least lingering shadow of uncertainty that he might possibly have
converted into a gleam of hope. He sat there like a man who has expected
to drink from an overflowing cup and suddenly finds it has nothing but
the empty air to offer to his thirsty lips.

'Guess!'

The little girl covered her mother's head with loud, quick kisses, in a
kind of frenzy, even hurting her a little.

'I know who it is--I know who it is,' cried Donna Maria--'Let me go!'

'What will you give me if I do?'

'Anything you like.'

'Well, I want a pony to carry back my berries to the house. Come and see
what a heap I have collected.'

She ran round the seat and pulled her mother by the hand. Donna Maria
rose rath