She had persuaded herself, with none too good reason, that the count was fully determined to marry her; and I may say that she possessed, to a marvellous degree, the gift of deluding herself with respect to the violence of the passions she inspired; nothing could equal her confidence in a promise, unless it were her philosophical and heroic indifference when she was deceived. I suffered considerably; my disease came very near assuming a serious character. The doctors found a very pronounced tendency to enlargement of the heart, and the very sharp pains which I felt about that organ and the excessive rush of blood thither necessitated numerous bleedings. So that I lost the rest of that season, and, as soon as I was convalescent, I went for rest and balmy air to a beautiful villa of Count Nasi's, a few leagues from Florence, near Cafaggiolo, at the foot of the Apennines. He promised to join me there with Checchina as soon as the performances for which she was engaged would allow her to leave Naples. A few days of that delightful solitude benefited me so much that I was allowed to take excursions of some length, sometimes in the saddle, sometimes on foot, through the narrow gorges and picturesque ravines which form a first step to the towering masses of the Apennines. In my musing I called that region the _proscenium_ of the great range, and I loved to seek out some amphitheatre of hills or some natural terrace where, all alone and far from every eye, I could indulge in outbursts of lyric declamation, which were answered by the resonant echoes or the mysterious murmur of the streams flowing under the rocks. One day I unexpectedly found myself on the Florence road. Like a glistening white ribbon it ran through a verdant, gently undulating country, strewn with beautiful gardens, wooded parks and handsome villas. Seeking to learn my whereabouts, I stopped at the gate of one of those charming abodes. The gate was open, and I could see an avenue of old trees mysteriously intertwined. Beneath those dark, voluptuously enlaced branches a woman was walking slowly--a woman of slender form and a bearing so noble that I paused to gaze at her and follow her with my eyes as long as possible. As she showed no inclination to turn, I was seized with an irresistible longing to see her features, and I yielded to it, heedless of the fact that I was violating the proprieties, and might be subjected to a humiliating rebuff. "Who can say," I said to myself, "women are so indulgent sometimes in this mild climate of ours!" Moreover, I reasoned that my face was too well known for me ever to be taken for a robber; and, lastly, I relied to some extent on the curiosity which the great majority of people feel to obtain a near view of the features and manners of an artist of some celebrity.