"Ah, poverinetta! The time is near--she sees her father. And why not?

He loved her well--he would come to fetch her for certain if the saints would let him."

And she fell on her knees and began to tell over her rosary with great devotion. Meanwhile Stella threw one little arm round my neck--her eyes were half shut--she spoke and breathed with increasing difficulty.

"My throat aches so, papa!" she said, pitifully. "Can you not make it better?"

"I wish I could, my darling!" I murmured. "I would bear all the pain for you if it were possible!"

She was silent a minute. Then she said:

"What a long time you have been away! And now I am too ill to play with you!" Then a faint smile crossed her features. "See poor To-to!" she exclaimed, feebly, as her eyes fell on a battered old doll in the spangled dress of a carnival clown that lay at the foot of her bed.

"Poor dear old To-to! He will think I do not love him any more, because my throat hurts me. Give him to me, papa!"

And as I obeyed her request she encircled the doll with one arm, while she still clung to me with the other, and added:

"To-to remembers you, papa; you know you brought him from Rome, and he is fond of you, too--but not as fond as I am!" And her dark eyes glittered feverishly. Suddenly her glance fell on a.s.sunta, whose gray head was buried in her hands as she knelt.

"a.s.sunta!"

The old woman looked up.

"Bambinetta!" she answered, and her aged voice trembled.

"Why are you crying?" inquired Stella with an air of plaintive surprise. "Are you not glad to see papa?"

Her words were interrupted by a sharp spasm of pain which convulsed her whole body--she gasped for breath--she was nearly suffocated. a.s.sunta and I raised her up gently and supported her against her pillows; the agony pa.s.sed slowly, but left her little face white and rigid, while large drops of sweat gathered on her brow. I endeavored to soothe her.

"Darling, you must not talk," I whispered, imploringly; "try to be very still--then the poor throat will not ache so much."

She looked at me wistfully. After a minute or two she said, gently:

"Kiss me, then, and I will be quite good."

I kissed her fondly, and she closed her eyes. Ten, twenty, thirty minutes pa.s.sed and she did not stir. At the end of that time the doctor entered. He glanced at her, gave me a warning look, and remained standing quietly at the foot of the bed. Suddenly the child woke, and smiled divinely on all three of us.

"Are you in pain, my dear?" I softly asked.

"No!" she answered in a tiny voice, so faint and far away that we held our breath to listen to it; "I am quite well now. a.s.sunta must dress me in my white frock again now papa is here. I knew he would come back!"

And she turned her eyes upon me with a look of bright intelligence.

"Her brain wanders," said the doctor, in a low, pitying voice; "it will soon be over."

Stella did not hear him; she turned and nestled in my arms, asking in a sort of babbling whisper:

"You did not go away because I was naughty, did you, papa?"

"No darling!" I answered, hiding my face in her curls.

"Why do you have those ugly black things on?" she asked, in the feeblest and most plaintive tone imaginable, so weak that I myself could scarcely hear it; "has somebody hurt your eyes? Let me see your eyes!" I hesitated. Dare I humor her in her fancy? I glanced up. The doctor's head again was turned away, a.s.sunta was on her knees, her face buried in the bed-clothes, praying to her saints; quick as thought I slipped my spectacles slightly down, and looked over them full at my little one. She uttered a soft cry of delight--"Papa! papa!" and stretched out her arms, then a strong and terrible shudder shook her little frame. The doctor came closer--I replaced my gla.s.ses without my action being noticed, and we both bent anxiously over the suffering child. Her face paled and grew livid--she made another effort to speak--her beautiful eyes rolled upward and became fixed--she sighed--and sunk back on my shoulder--dying--dead! My poor little one!

A hard sob stifled itself in my throat--I clasped the small lifeless body close in my embrace, and my tears fell hot and fast. There was a long silence in the room--a deep, an awe-struck, reverent silence, while the Angel of Death, noiselessly entering and departing, gathered my little white rose for his Immortal garden of flowers.

CHAPTER XVIII.

After some little time the doctor's genial voice, slightly tremulous from kindly emotion, roused me from my grief-stricken att.i.tude.

"Monsieur, permit me to persuade you to come away. Poor little child!

she is free from pain now. Her fancy that you were her father was a fortunate delusion for her. It made her last moments happy. Pray come with me--I can see this has been a shock to your feelings."

Reverently I laid the fragile corpse back on the yet warm pillows. With a fond touch I stroked the flaxen head; I closed the dark, upturned, and glazing eyes--I kissed the waxen cheeks and lips, and folded the tiny hands in an att.i.tude of prayer. There was a grave smile on the young dead face--a smile of superior wisdom and sweetness, majestic in its simplicity. a.s.sunta rose from her knees and laid her crucifix on the little breast--the tears were running down her worn and withered countenance. As she strove to wipe them away with her ap.r.o.n, she said tremblingly:--

"It must be told to madama." A frown came on the doctor's face. He was evidently a true Britisher, decisive in his opinions, and frank enough to declare them openly. "Yes," he said, curtly, "Madama, as you call her, should have been here."

"The little angel did not once ask for her," murmured a.s.sunta.

"True!" he answered. And again there was silence. We stood round the small bed, looking at the empty casket that had held the lost jewel--the flawless pearl of innocent childhood that had gone, according to a graceful superst.i.tion, to ornament the festal robes of the Madonna as she walked in all her majesty through heaven. A profound grief was at my heart--mingled with a sense of mysterious and awful satisfaction. I felt, not as though I had lost my child, but had rather gained her to be more entirely mine than ever. She seemed nearer to me dead than she had been when living. Who could say what her future might have been? She would have grown to womanhood--what then? What is the usual fate that falls to even the best woman? Sorrow, pain, and petty worry, unsatisfied longings, incompleted aims, the disappointment of an imperfect and fettered life--for say what you will to the contrary, woman's inferiority to man, her physical weakness, her inability to accomplish any great thing for the welfare of the world in which she lives, will always make her more or less an object of pity. If good, she needs all the tenderness, support, and chivalrous guidance of her master, man--if bad, she merits what she receives, his pitiless disdain and measureless contempt. From all dangers and griefs of the kind my Stella had escaped--for her, sorrow no longer existed. I was glad of it, I thought, as I watched a.s.sunta shutting the blinds close, as a signal to outsiders that death was in the house. At a sign from the doctor I followed him out of the room--on the stairs he turned round abruptly, and asked:

"Will YOU tell the countess?"

"I would rather be excused," I replied, decisively. "I am not at all in the humor for a SCENE."

"You think she will make a scene?" he said with an astonished uplifting of his eyebrows. "I dare say you are right though! She is an excellent actress."

By this time we had reached the foot of the stairs.

"She is very beautiful," I answered evasively.

"Oh, very! No doubt of that!" And here a strange frown contracted the doctor's brow. "For my own taste, I prefer an ugly woman to SUCH beauty."

And with these words he left me, disappearing down the pa.s.sage which led to "madama's" boudoir. Left alone, I paced up and down the drawing-room, gazing abstractedly on its costly fittings, its many luxurious knickknacks and elegancies--most of which I had given to my wife during the first few months of our marriage. By and by I heard the sound of violent hysterical sobbing, accompanied by the noise of hurrying footsteps and the rapid whisking about of female garments. In a few moments the doctor entered with an expression of sardonic amus.e.m.e.nt on his face. "Yes!" he said in reply to my look of inquiry, "hysterics, lace handkerchiefs, eau-de-Cologne, and attempts at fainting. All very well done! I have a.s.sured the lady there is no fear of contagion, as under my orders everything will be thoroughly disinfected. I shall go now. Oh, by the way, the countess requests that you will wait here a few minutes--she has a message for you--she will not detain you long. I should recommend you to get back to your hotel as soon as you can, and take some good wine. A rivederci! Anything I can do for you pray command me!"

And with a cordial shake of the hand he left me, and I heard the street door close behind him. Again I paced wearily up and down, wrapped in sorrowful musings. I did not hear a stealthy tread on the carpet behind me, so that when I turned round abruptly, I was startled to find myself face to face with old Giacomo, who held out a note to me on a silver salver, and who meanwhile peered at me with his eager eyes in so inquisitive a manner that I felt almost uneasy.

"And so the little angel is dead!" he murmured in a thin, quavering voice. "Dead! Ay, that is a pity, a pity! But MY master is not dead--no, no! I am not such an old fool as to believe that."

I paid no heed to his rambling talk, but read the message Nina had sent to me through him.

"I am BROKEN-HEARTED!" so ran the delicately penciled lines. "Will you kindly telegraph my DREADFUL loss to Signor Ferrari? I shall be much obliged to you." I looked up from the perfumed missive and down at the old butler's wrinkled visage; he was a short man and much bent, and something in the downward glance I gave him evidently caught and riveted his attention, for Tie clasped his hands together and muttered something I could not hear.

"Tell your mistress," I said, speaking slowly and harshly, "that I will do as she wishes. That I am entirely at her service. Do you understand?"

"Yes, yes! I understand!" faltered Giacomo, nervously, "My master never thought me foolish--I could always understand him--"

"Do you know, my friend," I observed, in a purposely cold and cutting tone, "that I have heard somewhat too much about your master? The subject is tiresome to me! Were your master alive, he would say you were in your dotage! Take my message to the countess at once."