The town lights were almost blotted out for me; but I hugged him and patted him with less shame than I should have felt if he had been an Englishman. He disengaged himself at last and shook me by the hand, and began his promenade again. Before we had exchanged another word we were slowing alongside the pier, and men were bustling along the deck and racing beside us on the land. Brunow came on deck, and Hinge got together our simple baggage. We had but just landed when I saw two ladies, whom I recognized at once. Miss Rossano and Lady Rollinson were waiting to meet us. Miss Rossano came to me and took my hand in both hers. “Thank you, Captain Fyffe,” she said. “My father is here?” “You are my daughter?” said the count. She bent and kissed him on the forehead gravely, and with perfect self-possession. An onlooker, who had known nothing of the story, would have guessed little from their meeting. They had a carriage in waiting, and Miss Rossano led the count towards it. “You will join us at the Lord Warden?” she said. And at that minute Brunow approached her. She took his hand in both of her own, precisely as she had taken mine; but entered the carriage without a word to him. Now, I have said nothing lately of my feeling for Miss Rossano; but anybody who reads this record may be sure that what had happened since I had last seen her had not tended to put her out of my mind. I knew that I was going to be very happy, or very unhappy, about her. I knew that the power lay in her hands to make my life mainly cloud or mainly sunshine. That was quite settled in my own mind by this time, and my wife and I have laughed a thousand times and more about it. Yes; I knew scarcely anything about her, and yet I was prepared to fight in the assurance that she possessed every virtue and every grace of character which I have since proved in her. This is the folly of love; but it is at the same time that which makes it so beautiful. Most young men, and most young women, live to be disillusioned. But I fell in love with better fortune, if with no more discretion, than the average man displays, and after many years of trial and happiness I know my wife to be a better woman than I had power to guess all those years ago. And I know, as every husband of a good wife knows, that I was a much better man than I could ever have been without her influence. All this leads me away from what I meant to say, which was simply that Miss Rossano's wordless reception of Brunow made me furiously jealous of him, and altogether dashed my happiness. She had spoken to me--_ergo_, she could speak. She had not spoken to him--_ergo_, the emotion of encountering him was too great for her. We had been six years married when I told her of this.