’Twas at Naples, accordingly, that Linnet came out first as Signora Casalmonte. But after a short season there, Andreas was quite sufficiently assured of ultimate success to venture upon taking his prize at once to England. He would sell his goods, like a prudent merchant that he was, in the dearest market. When Linnet first learned she was to go to London, a certain strange thrill of joy and hope and fear coursed through her irresistibly. London! that was the place where Will Deverill lived! London! that was the place where she soon might meet him! She clasped the little metal Madonna that still hung from her neck, convulsively. “Our Dear Frau, oh, protect me! Save me, oh, save me from the thoughts of my own heart! Help me to think of him less! Help me to try and forget him!” She was Andreas Hausberger’s wife now, and she meant to be true to him. Love him she never could, but she could at least be true to him. Not in deed alone, but in thought and in word, as Our Dear Frau knew, she strove hard to be faithful. Then came the first fluttering excitement and disappointment of London—that dingy Eldorado, so rich, so miserable—the dim, dank streets, the glare, the gloom, the opulence, the squalor of our fog-bound metropolis! For a week or two, thank Heaven, Linnet was too busy at arrangements and rehearsals to think of surroundings. They were the weeks during which Will was away in the Provinces, or he must almost certainly have heard of and attended the preliminary performances of the forthcoming opera. The final day arrived, and Linnet, all tremulous at the greatness of the stake, had to make her first appearance before that stolid sea of unsympathetic, hide-bound English faces. She had peeped at them from the wings before the curtain rose; oh, how her heart sank within her. The respectable sobriety of stalls and boxes, the square-jawed brutality of pit and gallery, the cynical aspect of the gentlemen of the press, in their faultless evening clothes and unruffled shirt-fronts—all contrasted so painfully with the vivid excitement and frank expectancy of the Neapolitan audiences to which alone she had hitherto been accustomed. One brighter thought, and only one, sustained her—Dear Lady, forgive her that she should think of it now! these were all Herr Will’s people, and they spoke Herr Will’s tongue; as Herr Will was kind, would not they too be kind to her?