Then the wretched man turned at bay. "I tell you what it is, Mrs.
French;--if I am treated in this way, I won't stand it. I won't,
indeed. I'll go away. I'm not going to be suspected, nor yet blown
up. I think I've behaved handsomely, at any rate to Camilla."

"Quite so, Mr. Gibson, if you would come and see her on evenings,"
said Mrs. French, who was falling back into her usual state of
timidity.

"But, if I'm to be treated in this way, I will go away. I've thought
of it as it is. I've been already invited to go to Natal, and if I
hear anything more of these accusations, I shall certainly make up
my mind to go." Then he left the house, before Camilla could be down
upon him from her perch on the landing-place.

CHAPTER LV.

THE REPUBLICAN BROWNING.

Mr. Glascock had returned to Naples after his sufferings in the
dining-room of the American Minister, and by the middle of February
was back again in Florence. His father was still alive, and it was
said that the old lord would now probably live through the winter.
And it was understood that Mr. Glascock would remain in Italy. He
had declared that he would pass his time between Naples, Rome, and
Florence; but it seemed to his friends that Florence was, of the
three, the most to his taste. He liked his room, he said, at the York
Hotel, and he liked being in the capital. That was his own statement.
His friends said that he liked being with Carry Spalding, the
daughter of the American Minister; but none of them, then in Italy,
were sufficiently intimate with him to express that opinion to
himself.

It had been expressed more than once to Carry Spalding. The world in
general says such things to ladies more openly than it does to men,
and the probability of a girl's success in matrimony is canvassed
in her hearing by those who are nearest to her with a freedom which
can seldom be used in regard to a man. A man's most intimate friend
hardly speaks to him of the prospect of his marriage till he himself
has told that the engagement exists. The lips of no living person had
suggested to Mr. Glascock that the American girl was to become his
wife; but a great deal had been said to Carry Spalding about the
conquest she had made. Her uncle, her aunt, her sister, and her great
friend Miss Petrie, the poetess,--the Republican Browning as she
was called,--had all spoken to her about it frequently. Olivia had
declared her conviction that the thing was to be. Miss Petrie had,