ttire.

'Heaven be thanked, that's over!' exclaimed Malkin, as he issued from
the portal. 'Bella, we have twenty-three minutes to get to the railway
station. Don't cry!' he whispered to her. 'I can't stand that!'

'No, no; don't be afraid,' she whispered back. 'We have said good-bye
already.'

'Capital! That was very thoughtful of you.--Goodbye, all! Shall write
from Paris, Earwaker. Nineteen minutes; we shall just manage it!'

He sprang into the cab, and away it clattered.

A letter from Paris, a letter from Strasburg, from Berlin,
Munich--letters about once a fortnight. From Bella also came an
occasional note, a pretty contrast to the incoherent enthusiasm of her
husband's compositions. Midway in September she announced their
departure from a retreat in Switzerland.

'We are in the utmost excitement, for it is now decided that in three
days we start for Italy! The heat has been terrific, and we have waited
on what seems to me the threshold of Paradise until we could hope to
enjoy the delights beyond. We go first to Milan. My husband, of course,
knows Italy, but he shares my impatience. I am to entreat you to write
to Milan, with as much news as possible. Especially have you heard
anything more of Mr. Peak?'

November the pair spent in Rome, and thence was despatched the
following in Malkin's hand:

'This time I am _not_ mistaken! I have seen Peak. He didn't see me;
perhaps wouldn't have known me. It was in Piale's reading-room. I had
sat down to _The Times_, when a voice behind me sounded in such a
curiously reminding way that I couldn't help looking round. It was
Peak; not a doubt of it. I might have been uncertain about his face,
but the voice brought back that conversation at your rooms too
unmistakably--long ago as it was. He was talking to an American, whom
evidently he had met somewhere else, and had now recognised. "I've had
a fever," he said, "and can't quite shake off the results. Been in
Ischia for the last month. I'm going north to Vienna." Then the two
walked away together. He looked ill, sallow, worn out. Let me know if
you hear.'

On that same day, Earwaker received another letter, with the Roman
post-mark. It was from Peak.

'I have had nothing particular to tell you. A month ago I thought I
should never write to you again; I got malarial fever, and lay
desperately ill at the _Ospedale Internazionale_ at Naples. It came of
some monstrous follies there's no need to speak of. A new and valuab