“The last night” said Niccolo. “To-morrow evening you will be upon the great sea; you will be on your way to your relations, to your England, which cannot be colder than your heart, Signorina. I weep, for I cannot forget that you were once a little child, and that I carried you in my arms. When I reflect that it is fifteen years, fifteen years that I have taken care of you, from the moment your nurse left you, _disgraziata!_ and that after to-morrow I shall see you no more! Whatever has to be done for you must be done by others, or will not be done at all, which is more likely. When you want anything you may call ‘Niccolo, Niccolo;’ but there will be no Niccolo to reply. If I were to permit myself to think of all this I should become _pazzo_, Signorina--though you don’t care.” Innocent said nothing; but slowly the reality of this tremendous alteration in her lot made itself apparent to her. No Niccolo! She could not realize it. With Niccolo, too, many other things would disappear. She looked round the lofty bare walls, which, indeed, had few attractions except those of use and wont, and faintly it dawned upon her that her whole life and everything that was familiar to her was about to vanish away. Large tears filled her eyes; she turned to Niccolo an appealing, beseeching look. “I do not understand,” she cried, with a panting breath; and put out her hands, and clung to him. He who was about to be left behind was the emblem of all the known, the familiar--I do not say the dear, for the girl’s heart and soul had been sealed up, and she loved nothing. But she knew him, and relied upon him, and had that child’s trust that he would never fail her, which is often all that a child knows of love. No Niccolo! She did not understand how existence was to go on without him. She clung to him with a look of sudden alarm and dismay in her dilated eyes.