“Not such a girl as Allegra. She is always well dressed, and her wardrobe is the perfection of neatness--but she is not the kind of girl to make a fuss about her clothes. I don’t think the trousseau will create any difficulty.” “And when she is gone, what will you do without your devoted companion? Who will nurse you and take care of you?” “Löttchen, or any other servant,” she answered, with a kind of weary indifference. “It would be very hard if my bad health should stand in the way of Allegra’s happiness. So long as you will stay with me and be kind to me, Martin, I need no one else.” Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she turned from him, pretending to be interested in the convent walls on the edge of the hill below which they were driving. “So long as I stay with you! My darling, do you think business or pleasure, or any claim in this world, will ever take me from you any more? All your hours are precious to me, Isola. I hardly live when I am away from you. Wherever your doctor may send you, or your own fancy may lead you, I shall go with you, unhesitatingly--without one regret for anything I leave behind.” “Don’t say these things,” she cried suddenly, with a choking sob; “you are too good to me. There are times when I can’t bear it.” CHAPTER XXVI. “SO, FULL CONTENT SHALL HENCEFORTH BE MY LOT.” Allegra was not inexorable. There, in the ruins of the Imperial baths, where Shelley dreamed the wonder-dream of his Prometheus, Captain Hulbert pleaded his cause. Could love resist the pleading of so fond a lover? Could art withstand the allurements of Venice--Titian and Tintoret, the cathedral of St. Mark and the Palace of the Doges, the birthplace of Desdemona and of Shylock, the home of Byron and of Browning? She consented to a Roman marriage. “I can’t help wishing I could be a Papist just for that one day,” she said lightly. “An Anglican marriage seems so dry and cold compared with the pomps and splendours of Rome.” “Dearest, the plainest Christian rites are enough, if they but make us one.” “I think we are that already, John,” she answered shyly; and then, nestling by his side as they sat in the wide solitude of that stupendous pile, she took his hand and held it in both her own, looking down at it wonderingly--a well-formed hand, strong and muscular, broadened a little by seafaring. “And you are to be my husband,” she said. “Mine! I shall speak of you to people as my own peculiar property. ‘My husband will do this or that.’ ‘My husband has gone out, but he will be home soon.’ Home. Husband. How strange it sounds!” “Strange and wonderful now, love. Sweet and familiar before our honeymoon is ended.”