She turned her eyes from the moonlit canal, down which dark gondolas floated to the music of the gay gondolier's song; once, as an English voice in the piazza below, sung a stave of a jingling barcarole,

"Oh, gay we row where full tides flow And bear our bounding pinnace; And leap along where song meets song, Across the waves of Venice."

The singer, a tall young man, with a florid face, and yellow side whiskers, an unmistakable son of the "right little, tight little"

island, paused in his song, as another man, stepping through an open window, struck him an airy sledge-hammer slap on the back.

"I ought to know that voice," said the last comer.

"Mortimer, my lad, how goes it?"

"Stafford!" cried the singer, seizing the outstretched hand in a genuine English grip, "happy to meet you, old boy, in the land of romance! La Fabre told me you were coming--but who would look for you so soon? I thought you were doing Sorrento?"

"Got tired of Sorrento," said Stafford, taking his arm for a walk up and down the piazza; "there's a fever there, too--quite an epidemic--malignant typhus. Discretion is the better part of valor, where Sorrento fevers are concerned. I left."

"When did you reach Venice?" asked Mortimer, lighting a cigar.

"An hour ago; and now who's here? Any one I know?"

"Lots. The Cholmonadeys, the Lythons, the Howards, of Leighwood; and, by-the-by, they have with them the Marble Bride."

"The which?" asked Mr. Stafford.

"The Marble Bride, the Princess Frostina, otherwise Miss Aileen Jocyln, of Jocyln Hall, Devonshire. You knew the old colonel, I think--he died over a year ago, you remember."

"Ah, yes! I remember. Is she here with the Howards, and as handsome as ever, no doubt?"

"Handsome to my mind, with an uplifted and unapproachable sort of beauty. A fellow might as soon love some bright particular star, etc., as the fabulously wealthy heiress of all the Jocylns. She has no end of suitors--all the best men here bow at the shrine of the ice-cold Aileen, and all in vain."

"You among the rest, my friend?" with a light laugh.

"No, by Jove!" cried Mr. Mortimer; "that sort of thing, the marble style, you know, never was to my taste. I admire Miss Jocyln immensely; just as I do that moon up there, with no particular desire ever to get nearer."

"What was that story I heard once, five years ago, about a broken engagement? Wasn't Thetford of that ilk hero of the tale? The romantic Thetford, who resigned his title and estate to a mysteriously-found elder brother, you know. The story rang through the papers and the clubs at the time like wildfire, and set the whole country talking, I remember. She was engaged to him, wasn't she, and broke off?"

"So goes the story--but who knows? I recollect that odd affair perfectly well; it was like the melo-dramas on the Surrey side of the Thames. I know the 'mysteriously found elder brother,' too--very fine fellow, Sir Guy Thetford, and married to the prettiest little wife the sun shines on. I must say Rupert Thetford behaved wonderfully well in that unpleasant business; very few men would do as he did--they would, at least, have made a fight for the title and estates. By-the-way, I wonder what ever became of him?"

"I left him at Sorrento," said Stafford, coolly.

"The deuce you did! What was he doing there?"

"Raving in the fever; so the people told me with whom he stopped. I just discovered he was in the place as I was about to leave it. He had fallen very low, I fancy; his pictures didn't sell, I suppose; he has been in the painting line since he ceased to be Sir Rupert, and the world has gone against him. Rather hard on him to lose fortune, title, home, bride, and all at one fell swoop."

"And so you left him ill of the fever? Poor fellow!"

"Dangerously ill."

"And the people with whom he is will take very little care of him. He's as good as dead. Let us go in--I want to have a look at the latest English papers."

The two men passed in, out of the moonlight, off the piazza, all unconscious that they had had a listener. The pale watcher in the trailing black robes scarcely heeding them at first, had grown more and more absorbed in the careless conversation. She caught her breath quick and hard, the dark eyes dilated, the slender hands pressed tight over the throbbing heart. As they went in off the balcony, she slid from her seat and held up her clasped hands to the luminous night sky.

"Here me, O God!" the white lips cried. "I, who have aided in wrecking a noble heart, hear me, and help me to keep my vow! I offer my whole life in atonement for the cruel and wicked past. If he dies, I shall go to my grave his unwedded widow. If he lives--"

Her voice faltered and died out, her face dropped forward on the window-sill, and the moonlight fell like a benediction on the bowed young head.

CHAPTER XVI.

AT SORRENTO.

The low light in the western sky was fading out; the bay of Naples lay rosy in the haze of the dying day; the soft, sweet wind floated over the waters; the fishing boats were coming in; and on this scene an invalid, looking from a window high up on the sea-washed cliff of Sorrento, gazed languidly.

For he was surely an invalid who sat in that window chair and gazed at the wondrous Italian sea, and that lovely Italian sky. Surely an invalid, with that pallid face, those spectral, hollow eyes, those sunken cheeks, those bloodless lips; surely an invalid, and one but very lately risen from the very gates of death, a pale shadow, worn and weak as a child.

As he sits there, where he has sat for hours, lonely and alone, the door opens, and an English face looks in--the face of an Englishman of the lower classes.

"A visitor for you, sir--just come, and a-foot; a lady, sir. She will not give her name, but wishes to see you most particular, if you please."

"A lady! To see me?"

The invalid opens his dark eyes in wonder as he speaks.

"Yes, sir; an English lady, sir, dressed in black, and a wearing of a thick veil. She asked for Mr. Rupert Thetford as soon as she see me, as plain, as plain, sir--"

The young man in the chair started, half rose, and then sunk back; an eager light lit in the hollow eyes.

"Let her come in, I will see her."

The man disappeared; there was an instant's pause, then a tall, slender figure, draped and veiled in black, entered alone.

The visitor stood still. Once more the invalid attempted to rise, once more his strength failed him. The lady threw back her veil with a sudden emotion.

"My God, Aileen!"

"Rupert!"

She was on her knees before him, lifting her suppliant hands.

"Forgive me! forgive me! I have seemed the most heartless and cruel of women. But I too, have suffered. I am base and unworthy; but, oh!

forgive me, if you can."

The old love, stronger then death, shone in her eyes, plead in her passionate, sobbing voice, and went to his very heart.

"I have been so wretched, so wretched all these miserable years. While my father lived, I would not disobey his stern command, that I was never to attempt to see or hear from you, and at his death I could not. You seemed lost to me and to the world. Only by the merest accident I heard in Venice you were here, and ill--dying. I lost no time; I came hither at once, hoping against hope to find you alive. Thank God I did come. O Rupert! for the sake of the past forgive me."

"Forgive you!" and he tried to raise her. "Aileen--darling!"