d sadly, "did you wish to die?"

"What now is life to me?" said she, "I meet with only contempt and
desertion from him for whom I forgot my gratitude and duty. Be frank
with me, do not fear my despair; but this doubt is too cruel. _Tell_ me
that you do not love me, let me learn it from your mouth, not from your
indifference."

The Count wished to speak.

"Ah! you do not know," continued she, and with her hand she bade him
listen, "what those long hours of expectation are, when every noise
seems to announce the coming of the person you love--when the hope
having been twenty times deceived, the ear rather than the heart listens
with the anxiety of death to the sound of every carriage which passes
by, but does not stop at your door--to the bell which announces another
visitor than the one who is expected. You do not know the torment of
those wretched evenings when alone, with no companion but sorrow--you
see ever before you your devotion to the one man all the time staring
you in the face, him attracted elsewhere by other charms. The soul that
suffers thus, by some instinctive powers, sees him approach every rival,
become intoxicated by her glance, listen to her voice, take her hand
stealthily, live in her life, while she dies a thousand times an hour--a
thousand deaths as often as despair passes a picture before her. Do you
see, Count, how horrible all this is? This is murderous, though time
must elapse before the deadly poison takes effect on the heart. In such
cases one who does not die rapidly is mad. Yesterday I had in my power
the means of avoiding such tortures."

Completely exhausted, the Duchess fell back on the cushion. The eyes of
the Count glistened with tears, and he knelt before the poor woman who
had suffered so much for him.

"Felina," said he, "until to-day I thought courage consisted in braving
danger, and even death: I now know that I have only to unveil my heart
to you to prove that my daring did not need that I should contend with
the ocean, be immured in a dungeon, and bare my neck to the axe. I will
have that courage, for to me it is a duty, and I will not shrink from
it. When I met you on the Lago di Como--when sad at the fact that I had
been deserted by men who did not know me, by the woman I adored, I saw
your immense tenderness unfolded to me, when you uttered those
passionate words which my heart had no power then of understanding, I
fancied that I had forgotten the past in the charms of a