least, not to stir beyond the garden. The sun is like a furnace, and the scirocco is blowing.'

She promised, and stood in the porch watching him, till he disappeared down the narrow lane.

It was one of those sultry mornings dear, it is said, to mad dogs and Englishmen only. Gervase, like a true Briton, went on his march unperturbed. Laurence was well content to spend a quiet day in the loggia, where she installed herself as soon as he was gone.

She wrote letters to Felicia and Cherubina; they must not think themselves forgotten; then, yielding to the enervating effect of the atmosphere, she abandoned herself to pleasant idlesse, and the random train of thought that idlesse brings. She was beginning to wake from her day-dream; still, its brightness transfigured the future, which rose before her fancy as glorious and inviting as the paradise of Nature around her now. Last night she and Gervase had been making schemessketching out a perfect plan of life for themselves, and Laurence reverted to it again as an indulgence. It was unreal, but very charming. Not her old toilsome nomad career over again. From that she was parted-with a pang, it is true; but in one way or another she would remain true to her vocation; rid of the petty troubles and vulgar hardships that had been the flaws in her past course, she would retain the ideal part of an artist's existence only.

Time is nowhere on such a summer's day. Towards noon drowsiness and languor overcame her entirely, and threw her into a siesta, from which she was half roused presently by voices at the foot of the stairs, heard by her confusedly in her sleep.

'The signor is gone out for the

VOL. XXXVII. NO. CCXXVII.

day. The signora is up above on the balcony.'

'Ah, I see. Well, I shall go up and speak to her there. Pray do not trouble yourself, my good woman, this hot day.'

The weather indeed was not encouraging to needless exertion. Teresa nodded, shouted out something unintelligible by way of announcement to her mistress on the balcony, and beat a retreat into the kitchen, whilst the visitor mounted the staircase.

The young bride, in a soft white dress, reclining there on a rude wooden bench, raised her head, and, but half awake, confronted the intruder-some one in elegant Parisian costume whom she did not instantly recognise. As the visitor threw back her veil, Laurence started up, with an air even Linda found hard to brave.

'Hush !' warned Linda promptly, in an undertone, coming nearer; 'your donna is still loitering about below. All the doors are open. If you speak loud it will attract notice, and these people are so inquisitive.'

Laurence had partly recovered from the nervous shock and the confusion of waking. She stood there like a statue, but her heart throbbed too violently for her to speak at first. Then she raised her eyes with a divine forbearance in them that fell on Linda like piercing sunlight and fire. It seemed to shrivel up her own wretched soul, and made her wish to sink into the earth.

'What can you want with me?" Laurence said faintly.

Linda was overwhelmed by shame and compunction. Her object in coming, though of the gravest, was temporarily put out of her head. What no amount of argument and evidence could have brought home to her, Laurence's simple presence and man

HH

ner at this moment forbade her ever to forget again. Had she not known it in her secret heart all along? This companion of her youthful days-Gervase's wifewas of another order of beings from herself.

Instead of answering she stepped back, made one vain effort to retain her self-possession; then her passion of remorse broke out.

6

'You should hate me,' she said excitedly, half sobbing; and you would, if you knew me, which I see you do not, or you would not speak so. O, you have cause !'

'No more than I know,' said Laurence, with an emphasis there was no mistaking.

Linda shifted her look uneasily, her eyes fell to the ground.

'I turned against you,' she murmured. I don't know what I wrote now, except that it was all lies. I vowed that you at least should never become his wife. It was to be, though; and what was I, that I should prevent it?'

She ventured now to raise her eyes timidly. Laurence had turned away her head, and was leaning against the post that supported the trellis, looking fixedly into the distance, where the sea broke through the dark trees.

Now Linda suddenly recollected her errand-it drove back her flow of penitence, and she resumed hurriedly, in another tone,

'But I come as your friend this time to warn you. Where is your husband ?

Laurence started, as if stung. 'Take care, Linda,' she said, in a nervously strained voice. 'You have forced your way in here to tell me wild things, of which I don't know what to think-how far they may be true. You shall not force questions upon me.'

Linda, distracted with impa

tience, began wringing her hands in despair.

Where is he?' she repeated. 'Good God! how shall I make her believe me? He is in danger, and I came to warn him, for your sake and his, not mine. What is it to me now if he lives or dies, loves you or another? But he is in danger of his life, and doesn't know it!'

'What danger?' asked Laurence, in a terrified voice. Linda's uneasiness, which was only too genuine, had struck her with a vague deadly alarm.

Tell me where he is gone!' 'To Naples.'

Linda caught up the words eagerly.

'To Naples! And he returns! "To-night.'

"By the high-road? Then all is safe. Safe! She flung herself on the bench, shading her face with her hand.

'What is the matter? Tell me instantly asked Laurence, in painful bewilderment.

Linda rose, glancing uneasily round the garden below to make sure no one was within earshot.

'Bruno, my brother, is hiding in these parts. He was imprisoned on a false charge of robbery, brought against him by your husband. Have you heard the story? Something Laurence had heard, but vaguely and long ago.

6

'It was a mistake,' continued Linda; and the truth came out the other day. It was hushed up, and is forgotten; but the grudge Bruno bears he will carry with him to his grave.'

'I understand,' said Laurence breathlessly.

'Last night Bruno made me wait in the lane outside the villa to speak for him to your husband when he came out. Bruno wants money to get to America. Surely he has a claim to some compensa

tion from the man who did him so cruel a wrong.'

'Do you mean it was refused?' 'No, no.'

'What is the danger, then? what does he threaten?'

Linda, at her wit's end with perplexity and shame. at the thought of how she had been her brother's tool, began, as it were, excusing herself.

'Bruno forbade me to let out that he was here he would not even tell me where he has found shelter-with some cottage people, I suppose. And he says he only wants money from the man who has wronged him. But I don't trust him, or feel as if I knew what he means.'

'What do you fear?' asked Laurence sharply.

'Don't ask me.' Linda covered her eyes. 'If they were to meet --Bruno is violent, unforgiving, madly revengeful. O Heaven! I don't know what I fear, but I felt I must come and warn you. In your place I should leave."

Laurence was silent. Something in her countenance made Linda fear her testimony and sincerity were doubted.

'You don't believe me,' she sighed helplessly. O, but you might; and if ever you hated me, you need not now. I tried to harm you, but no harm came of it except to myself. And then how happy you are! You are his choice; you have his love and his honour; and I- When he saw me yesterday- I hated myself- He doesn't care enough to hate me or he would. I am a miserable thing. Laurence, you might forgive me!' she urged.

I do forgive you, Linda,' said Laurence, with a childlike earnest that sounded strange and yet familiar to the other. Was it Gervase's bride speaking, or rather the little girl who had been

her companion long ago? The tears were in Linda's eyes; she wiped them quickly away, and with them the transient emotion. 'Bruno must soon leave the country,' she resumed. • If you will trust me with the money, and send it, I will see that it reaches him. But, for yourselves, promise not to stay here. Get him to take you away.'

'I will try,' said Laurence mechanically.

'And you will tell him that I came to warn him. Yesterday I was a coward, and dared not. I had just parted from Bruno, who was listening.'

'I will tell him,' said Laurence. A little knot of flowers she wore in her dress had become loosened, and the wind scattered them over the balcony. Linda, with a sudden instinctive movement, stooped down and picked up a fallen spray. When Laurence turned she was gone-abruptly, as she had come. Laurence

sank her head in her hands. Was it a dream, what had just passed?

Linda, her anxiety relieved, her conscience appeased, began rapidly to recover her coolness and complacency, as she went on her way back through the shady lanes to her hotel.

'How well she looked!' she thought to herself. 'Ah, it is work that wears. She has done right to give it up, as I shall do

soon.'

It was four o'clock when Gervase, having got through his business, left Naples. The dawdling train, in an hour or upwards, took him the first fourteen miles to Castellamare. The railroad ends here, and he proposed to hire a carriage to take him part of the way home, and walk the remainder. It was growing cool and pleasant, and he was not sorry when the moment came to dis

miss his shaky dust-raising vehicle. The route was at any time enjoyable enough to be worth taking slowly. At every turn he met convoys of peasants leading long teams of donkeys with jangling bells, laden with sacks; darkhaired country girls, with fruitbaskets on their heads, many of whom had a smile of recognition for him, and a greeting and a courteous inquiry after the signora.

He

That is perhaps the finest walk in the world; and the world is a fine place, forsooth. Of this Gervase would have taken his oath. His felicity was too high-pitched for bygones to cloud and to blur it. It made him fearless, disposed him to defy Linda and her petty malice. As he walked on briskly, his rising spirits and self-confidence turned the balance. made up his mind to go and meet her on the beach. He would use all his powers of persuasion to bring her to reason, dispossess her of any lingering inclination to tamper with his present prosperity and peace. For Bruno, he was ready with a round sum, twice what had been named, that should close that account in a manner gratifying to his pride.

Here was the chasm, crossed by the viaduct; here the rude side-path struck off; it was merely a dry water-course, by which little boys and boatmen scramble down to the marina below. Gervase had adventured the descent, with Laurence, weeks ago, and taken a boat back to the villa. The ascent was rough and toilsome, and Gervase trusted, when his interview was over, he might find some fishermen on the shore who would row him home; he would come upon Laurence by surprise from the garden.

The marina was a lonely spot at this hour, when there were no English ladies sketching the ruined

tower or bathing in the creek. No better place could have been chosen for a private interview. Gervase looked up and down the hill-side and along the shore, and saw nothing but a single boat, with a fisherman curled up in a sleeping posture at the rudder, too drowsy, fortunately, to come clamouring prematurely for the gentleman's custom.

Gervase was punctual, but Linda was not. When had she been? Still, this fresh sign of her inconsequence at this juncture irritated him. He would give her a quarter of an hour's grace, he said. As the minutes sped, bringing no sign, a great gladness came over him. He began to discover that nothing in him approved the step he had taken in coming to the rendezvous. He had yielded to the temptation held out by this chance of ridding himself off hand of a temporary annoyance; but he had done so in flat defiance of his judgment and his conscience.

Half an hour, and his patience was exhausted; he would wait no longer, but get home at once and by water, as the easiest, pleasantest way. The recumbent boatman was awake now, and had for some while been watching the Englishman with the avidity with which foreigners, who are always understood to be wanting something marketable, a boat, a guide, a donkey, or information,—are accustomed to be regarded by indigent Italians. At Gervase's peremptory shout, Ho, there!' he sprang up promptly, making signs of intelligence and pointing to his boat.

'To the Villa Incognita,' said Gervase briefly. He continued to watch the hill-side, dreading lest he should see the expected figure approaching, whilst the boat was being unhooked and dragged down to the brink ready

for launching. The water was as smooth as glass, the breeze from the right quarter; it was an hour's easy row to the Villa Incognita. Gervase cast a careless glance at the unmuscular build and slender back of the fellow he had engaged to row him, and calculated that he had made a bad bargain. But he knew himself to be a good oar, and well able to supply any deficiency. He felt in no hurry to begin work, though; settled himself comfortably on the cushions, keeping his eyes still fixed on the hill-side. The boatman, with his back turned, stood propelling the skiff onwards, gondolier fashion.

Rounding the point of the little cove, they were out of sight of the watch-tower, and Gervase fell into a brown study, lulled by the gentle motion of the boat. Linda's non-appearance, though he felt heartily thankful for it now, was singular and a little disquieting. He thought of a dozen ways of accounting for it, but not one that was perfectly satisfactory. His anxiety made him eager to reach home, and he soon grew impatient of the slow progress of the boat. The Neapolitan mariners are no athletes. They contrast ill with the hardy mariners of Capri, who hold them in open contempt; and Gervase's Charon was clearly of the least efficient: still the passenger felt too lazy to do himself what he had paid another man for doing well or ill.

'Put up the sail,' he said at last, in despair.

The wind is wanting,' objected the other.

'Nonsense! There is what will get us along faster than those oars of yours. At this pace, I may reach the Villa Incognita towards midnight. Put up the sail, I say.'

The man shrugged his shoul

ders obstinately, and mumbled some sullen inaudible excuse.

'You won't?' said Gervase coolly. Steady, then, and I'll show you.'

He would let this surly Italian know who was master, and, by taking the law into his own hands, force him to obey. With an adroitness that showed early practice, he fixed the little mast and leisurely unfurled the little sail, the boatman all the while pretending not to notice, till Gervase began hoisting the canvas, and shouted to him imperiously to take the rudder; whereat he muttered an oath, but laid aside his oars to comply.

'Never knew an Italian object to put up a sail before,' was Gervase's comment. The idle blockhead doesn't know his own business, that's the fact.'

The breeze was faint, but steady; they skimmed on quickly over the smooth surface, skirting the shore closely. Gervase's boatman, hot and out of breath with his half-hour's labour, took off his hat and fanned himself.

'Lazy scoundrel,' muttered the Englishman, glancing across at the steerer, who was watching him and his skilful management of the sail.

Gervase, though theoretically aware that the brown-skinned, bare-footed thing before him, in a striped shirt and battered straw hat, was a human creature, had till this moment seen absolutely nothing there but a pair of arms he had hired to row him, and that did their work uncommonly ill. He now awoke to a sudden consciousness that it was a man, and not an automaton, a sentient, thinking being like himself. The features, hitherto partly concealed by the broad-brimmed hat, were now suddenly displayed, and Gervase was instantaneously reminded