f terrified, half angry at the summons.

M'Caskey, at once assuming the upper hand, a habit in which practice
had made him proficient, demanded haughtily to see "the Count," their
master.

"He is at dinner," said they both together.

"I wish I were so too," said the Major. "Go in and tell him that I am
the bearer of a royal despatch, and desire to see him immediately."

They held counsel together in whispers for a few minutes, during which
the name Maria occurred frequently between them. "We will tell the
Signora Maria you are here," said one, at last.

"And who may she be?" said M'Caskey, haughtily.

"She is the Cameriera of the Countess, and the chief of all the
household."

"My business is not with a waiting-woman. I have come to see the Count
of Amalfi," said the Major, sternly.

The men apparently knew their own duties best, and, civilly asking
him to follow, they led the way up a small flight of stairs, and after
traversing some scantily furnished rooms, showed him into a pretty
decorated little chamber, with two windows looking on the sea.

Having politely begged him to be seated, they left him. The Major,
besides being hungry and jaded, was irritable and angry. Filangieri had
told him his mission was one of importance and high trust; in fact, so
much so, that it could not be confided to one less known than himself.
And was this the way they received a royal envoy, sent on such an
errand? While he thus fumed and chafed, he heard a door open and
close, and shortly after the sweep of a woman's dress coming along the
corridor; and now the step came nearer, and the door opened, and a tall,
sickly-looking woman entered; but scarcely had she advanced one pace
within the room, when she uttered a faint scream and fainted.

The Major's first care was to turn the key in the lock; his second was
to lift up the almost lifeless figure, and place her on a sofa. As he
did so, any emotion that his features betrayed was rather of displeasure
than astonishment; and in the impatient way he jerked open the window
to let the fresh air blow on her, there was far more of anger than
surprise.

"So, then, you are the Signora Maria, it would seem," were the first
words she heard as she rallied from her swoon.

"Oh, Miles!" cried she, with an intense agony, "why have you tracked me
here? Could you not have let me drag out my few years of life in peace?"

It was difficult to guess how these words affected him, or, rather, in