‘Are you sure of that?’ asked Christian Harefield. ‘I have fancied sometimes that there is something more than cousinly regard between the Signora and Captain Murano.’ The Colonel laughed at the idea. The cousins had been brought up together like brother and sister--both were enthusiasts in music and love of country. There was sympathy--an ardent sympathy between them--nothing more. Christian Harefield’s jealous temper was not to be satisfied so easily. He kept his opinion; but passion was stronger than prudence, and a week after he had made his offer to the father he proposed to the daughter. She accepted him with a pretty submission that charmed him--but which meant that she had learnt her lesson. She had been told that to refuse this chance of fortune was to inflict a deliberate and cruel injury upon those she loved--her father, for whom life had been a hard-fought battle, unblest by a single victory--her brother, who was on the threshold of life, and who needed to be put in the right road by a friend as powerful as Christian Harefield. The girl accepted her English suitor, loving that absent one fondly all the while, and believing she was doing her duty. Then followed a union which might have been calm and peaceful, nay, even happy, had fate and Christian Harefield willed it. His wife’s health rendered a winter in England impossible. The doctors ordered her southward as soon as autumn began. What more natural than that her own wishes should point to her native city, the lovely and civilized Florence? Her husband, at first doting, though always suspicious, indulged this reasonable desire. At Florence they met the soldier cousin. He and Mrs. Harefield’s father both belonged to the patriot party. Both believed that the hour for casting off the Austrian yoke was close at hand. Colonel Murano’s _salon_ was the rendezvous of all the _Carbonari_ in the city. It was a political club. Mrs. Harefield shared the enthusiasm of her father and her cousin, and even her husband’s stern nature was moved to sympathy with a cause so noble. Then, by a slow and gradual growth, jealousy took root in the husband’s heart, and strangled every better feeling. He began to see in his wife’s love for Florence a secret hankering after an old lover. He set himself to watch, and the man who watches always sees something to suspect. His own eyes create the monster. By and by, Antonio Murano came to England on a secret mission to an exiled chief of the patriot party, and naturally went northward to visit his cousin. He was received with outward friendship but inward distrust. Then came scenes of suppressed bitterness between husband and wife--a sleepless watchfulness that imagined evil in every look and word, and saw guilt in actions the most innocent. A life that was verily hell upon earth. Later there followed positive accusations--the open charge of infidelity; and, in the indignation kindled by groundless allegations,