"Camillo returned to us and told the tale. I felt my heart wither and grow old. My mother was grieved in her heart for her son's sorrow--in her pride for its kind and method. Fiora did not smile any more. Her step was no longer bounding upon the floor and the stairs, and the year afterward she married the Marchese Cicada. "The next day, Camillo returned to the island. The abbess had not returned, nor had any tidings been received. Only the gondola had been found in the morning in its usual place. The days passed. A new abbess was chosen. The church did not dare to curse the fugitive, for there was no proof that she had willingly gone away. It might be supposed--it could not be proved. Camillo hung in his chamber the unfinished portrait, and a black veil shrouded it from chance and curious eyes. He did not seem altered. He was still calm and grave--still cold and sweet in his general intercourse. "My friendship with him became more intimate. He saw that I was much changed--for although pride can do much, the heart is stronger than the head. But he had no suspicion of the truth. People who suffer intensely often forget that there are other sufferers in the world, you know. Camillo was very tender toward me, for he thought that I was paying the penalty of too warm a sympathy with him, and often begged me not to wear away my health and youth in commiseration for what was past and hopeless. I cultivated my consciousness of his suffering as a defence against my own. We never mentioned the names of either of those of whom we were always thinking; but once in many months he would call me into his chamber and remove the veil from the portrait, while we stood before it as silent as devotees in a church before the picture of the Madonna. Camillo pursued his affairs--the cares of his estate--the duties of society. He assembled all the strangers of distinction at his table. Yes, it was a rare and great triumph. "For myself, I was mistress of my secret, and I reveal it to you for the first time. Why not? I am seventy years old. You know none of the persons--you hear it as you would read a romance. My heart was broken--my faith was lost--and I have never met since any one who could restore it. I distrust the sweetest smile if it move me deeply, and although men may sometimes be sincere, yet sorrow is so sure that we must steer by memory, not by hope. In this world we must not play that we are happy. That play has a frightful forfeit. Society is wise. It eats its own children, whose consolation is that after this world there is another--and a better, say the priests. Of course--for it could not be a worse. V.