Nelly heard little of this reproachful speech, for, sunk in the recess of the window, she was following with her eyes the retiring figure of Adolf Brawer. He had just crossed the “Plate,” and ere he turned into a side street he stopped, wheeled round, and made a gesture of farewell towards the spot where, unseen by him, Nelly was still standing. “He is gone!” muttered she, half aloud. “Well, God speed him!” rejoined Dalton, testily. “I never could abide a pedler.” CHAPTER VI. MADAME DE HEIDENDORF Kate Dalton's was a heavy heart as, seated beside her new friend, she whirled along the road to Vienna. The scenery possessed every attraction of historic interest and beauty. The season was the glorious one of an Italian spring. There were ancient cities, whose very names were like spells to memory. There were the spots of earth that Genius has consecrated to immortality. There were the scenes where Poetry caught its inspiration, and around which, even yet, the mind-created images of fancy seem to linger, all to interest, charm, and amuse her, and yet she passed them without pleasure, almost without notice. The splendid equipage in which she travelled, the hundred appliances of ease and luxury around her, the obsequious, almost servile devotion of her attendants, recalled but one stern fact,--that she had sold herself for all these things; that for them she had bartered her warm affections,--her love of father and sister and brother,--the ties of home and of kindred, even to the Faith at whose altar she had bent her knees in infancy. She had given all for greatness. In all her castle-buildings of a future, her own family bad formed figures in the picture. To render her poor father happy; to surround his old age with the comforts he pined after; to open to dear Nelly sources of enjoyment in the pursuit she loved; to afford Frank the means of associating with his comrades of rank, to mix in that society for which he longed,--these were her objects, and for them she was willing to pay dearly. But now she was not to witness the happiness of those she loved. Already the hard conditions of her contract were to be imposed. Banishment first, then Isolation; who could say what after?