ent,
and said, as he gained the Piazza, 'You 're not such bad _canaille_,
after all; I have seen worse in Mexico.' He went on board a
despatch-boat in the bay, and ordered the commander to take him to
Gaeta; and the oddest of all is, the officer complied, overpowered,
as better men have been, by the scoundrels impertinence. Oh, Tony,
to you,--to yourself, to your heart's most secret closet, fast to be
locked, when you have my secret inside of it,--to _you_, I own, that
the night I passed in that wretch's company is the darkest page of my
existence. He overwhelmed me with insult, and I had to bear it, just as
I should have to bear the buffeting of the waves if I had been thrown
into the sea. I 'd have strangled him then and there if I was able, but
the brute would have torn me limb from limb if I attempted it. Time may
diminish the acuteness of this suffering, but I confess to you, up to
this, when I think of what I went through, my humiliation overpowers me.
I hope fervently you may meet him one of these days. You have a little
score of your own, I suspect, to settle with him; at all events, if
the day of reckoning comes, include my balance, and trust to my eternal
gratitude.

"Here have come Alice and Bella to make me read out what I have written
to you; of course I have objected. This is a 'strictly private and
confidential.' What we do for the blue-books, Master Tony, we do in
a different fashion. Alice, perhaps, suspects the reasons of my
reserve,--'appreciates my reticence,' as we say in the 'Line.'

"At all events, she tells me to make you write to her. 'When Tony,' said
she, 'has found out that he was only in love with me because I made him
better known to his own heart, and induced him to develop some of his
own fine qualities, he 'll begin to see that we may and ought to be
excellent friends; and some day or other, when there shall be a
Mrs. Tony, if she be a sensible woman, she 'll not object to their
friendship.' She said this so measuredly and calmly that I can almost
trust myself to say I have reported her word for word. It reads to me
like a very polite _conge_. What do you say to it?

"The Lyles are going back at the end of the month, but Alice says
she 'll winter at Cairo. There is an insolent independence about these
widows, Tony, that adds one more terror to death. I protest I 'd like
to haunt the woman that could employ her freedom of action in this
arbitrary manner.

"Dearest Bella insists on yo