first time we had been in the wonderful
chapel. Fortunately, there were very few persons there on this
afternoon--none that we knew. I sat down to look at the grand frescoes:
Helen and the count walked on to the farthest corner. I looked at the
Cumaean Sibyl, the impersonation of age and wisdom, and wished, as I
glanced at the youthful figures talking so earnestly in the distance,
but not a murmur of whose voices reached my ear, that she would impart
to me her far-reaching vision of futurity. I gazed on the image of the
Eternal Father sweeping in majestic flight through the air, bearing the
angels on His floating garment as He divides the light from the
darkness. I saw Adam, glad with new life, rising from the earth, because
the outstretched finger of his Creator gave him a conscious strength. I
looked at "The Last Judgment," grown dim with years, till every figure
started out in intensity of life, and it seemed as if the faces would
haunt me for ever.

And yonder still progressed the old, ever-new drama of love and anguish,
with its two actors, who seemed scarcely to have changed their position
or taken their eyes from each other. At length they walked slowly toward
me with more serenity of aspect than I had dared to hope.

"Shall we go into the picture-gallery?" asked the count.

"I think we may have time to walk through it," I answered. "It is
half-past three."

"Is it possible that we have kept you waiting so long?" they asked
simultaneously.

"An hour and a half is a short time in a place like the Sistine Chapel,"
I remarked sententiously.

As soon as we were alone I drew Helen to the confessional: "Did you tell
him about Mr. Denham?"

"Yes, everything, and he was so noble. I am so sorry. The tears stood in
his eyes, and he said, 'I suffer, but I am a man. I can bear it.' Then
he thanked me for dealing so openly with him. He never once hinted a
reproach. And I deserved it," she said with unwonted humility. "I never
felt before how wicked it is to flirt just a little. He is not selfish,
like some people that I know;" and my thought followed hers. "I don't
know but I am a little goose to let him go so. If he were only
twenty-three years old, and I were free--"

The next day we saw nothing of the count, but early Thursday morning
Vincenzo knocked at my door with a note, in which Count Alvala informed
me that he was my son, and begged earnestly to see the beautiful Miss
St. Clair once more: he would never tro