I wanted to take her up from that cold couch--to carry her to some home where there should be light and heat and laughter--to warm her to life again within my arms; and as my brain played with these foolish fancies, slow hot tears forced themselves into my eyes and scalded my cheeks as they fell.

These tears relieved me--gradually the tightly strung tension of my nerves relaxed, and I recovered my usual composure by degrees.

Turning deliberately away from the beckoning grave-stones, I walked back to the city through the thick of the storm, this time with an assured step and a knowledge of where I was going.

I did not reach my hotel till past midnight, but this was not late for Naples, and the curiosity of the fat French hall-porter was not so much excited by the lateness of my arrival as by the disorder of my apparel.
"Ah, Heaven!" he cried; "that monsieur the distinguished should have been in such a storm all unprotected! Why did not monsieur send for his carriage ?" I cut short his exclamations by dropping five francs into his ever-ready hand, assuring him that I had thoroughly enjoyed the novelty of a walk in bad weather, whereat he smiled and congratulated me as much as he had just commiserated me.

On reaching my own rooms, my valet Vincenzo stared at my dripping and disheveled condition, but was discreetly mute.