He knew that in this desire he exceeded the teaching of churchmen; that another priest in his place might have bade her keep her sad secret to the end, lie down with it in her early grave, be remembered as a saint, yet die knowing herself a sinner. If he had thought of the husband’s peace first, he would have counselled silence. But he thought most of this stricken soul, with wings that spread themselves towards heaven, held down to earth by the burden of an unpardoned sin. He looked at her in the lamplight, and her eyes met his with a straighter outlook than he had seen in them for a long time. She looked actually happy, and that look of happiness in a face on which death has set its seal has always something which suggests a life beyond the grave. “The excitement of this marriage question has brightened you wonderfully, Mrs. Disney,” he said. “We shall have you in high health by the wedding-day.” “I am feeling better because I am so glad,” Isola answered naively, putting her hand into Allegra’s. “I consider it positively insulting to me as a sister,” exclaimed Allegra, bending down to kiss the too-transparent hand--such a hand as she had seen in many a picture of dying saint in the Roman galleries. “You are most unaffectionately rejoiced to get rid of me. I have evidently been a tyrannical nurse, and a dull companion, and you breathe more freely at the prospect of release.” “You have been all that is dear and good,” Isola answered softly, “and I shall feel dreadfully lonely without you; but it won’t be for long. And I shall be so comforted by the knowledge that nothing can come between you and your life’s happiness.” The two men came in from the loggia, bringing with them the cool breath of night. Isola went to the piano and played one of those Adagios of Mozart’s which came just within the limit of her modest powers, and which she played to perfection, all her soul in the long lingering phrases, the tender modulations, with their suggestions of shadowy cathedral aisles, and the smoke of incense in the deepening dusk of a vesper service. Those bits of Mozart, the slow movements from the Sonatas, an Agnus Dei, or an Ave Maria from one of the Masses, satisfied Captain Hulbert’s highest ideas of music. He desired nothing grander or more scientific. The new learning of the Wagnerian school had no charm for him. “If you ask me about modern composers, I am for Verdi and Gounod,” he said. “For gaiety and charm, give me Auber, Rossini, and Boieldieu--for pathos, Weber--for everything, Mozart. There you have the whole of my musical education.” The question of settlements was opened seriously between Martin Disney and his future brother-in-law, early on the following morning. Hulbert wanted to settle all the money he had in the world upon Allegra.