m
till it rested on the stilet. This she handed to him. "If they think of
having me alive!" he said softly. The Italian and his wife who had given
him shelter and nursed him came in, and approved his going, though they
did not complain of what they might chance to have incurred. He offered
them his purse, and they took it. Minutes of grievous expectation went
by; Vittoria could endure them no longer; she ran out to the hotel,
near which, in the shade of a poplar, Wilfrid was smoking quietly.
He informed her that his sister and the doctor had driven out to meet
Captain Gambier; his brother-in-law was alone upstairs. Her look of
amazement touched him more shrewdly than scorn, and he said, "What on
earth can I do?"

"Order out a carriage. Send your brother-in-law in it. If you tell him
'for your health,' he will go."

"On my honour, I don't know where those three words would not send him,"
said Wilfrid; but he did not move, and was for protesting that he
really could not guess what was the matter, and the ground for all this
urgency.

Vittoria compelled her angry lips to speak out her suspicions
explicitly, whereupon he glanced at the sun-glare in a meditation,
occasionally blinking his eyes. She thought, "Oh, heaven! can he be
waiting for me to coax him?" It was the truth, though it would have been
strange to him to have heard it. She grew sure that it was the truth;
never had she despised living creature so utterly as when she murmured,
"My best friend! my brother! my noble Wilfrid! my old beloved! help me
now, without loss of a minute."

It caused his breath to come and go unevenly.

"Repeat that--once, only once," he said.

She looked at him with the sorrowful earnestness which, as its meaning
was shut from him, was so sweet.

"You will repeat it by-and-by?--another time? Trust me to do my
utmost. Old beloved! What is the meaning of 'old beloved'? One word in
explanation. If it means anything, I would die for you! Emilia, do you
hear?--die for you! To me you are nothing old or by-gone, whatever I
may be to you. To me--yes, I will order the carriage you are the
Emilia--listen! listen! Ah! you have shut your ears against me. I am
bound in all seeming, but I--you drive me mad; you know your power.
Speak one word, that I may feel--that I may be convinced,... or not a
single word; I will obey you without. I have said that you command my
life."

In a block of carriages on the bridge, Vittoria perceived a lifted ha