Nor was it a less trial for the young inexperienced creature, knowing nothing of passion, who was held thus in the grip of despair. Fortunately, Alice could not understand the full force of the tempest in her mother’s heart. ‘Oh, mamma, how can you think I want to leave you?’ she cried, with tears; and Frank, listening, felt with a pang that he was cast aside. Then she paused. ‘But, oh, mamma, dear!’ said Alice, with a soft, pleading, breathless tone, melodious like the cooing of a dove,--‘oh, mamma, dear!’--and she slid her tender arm round her mother’s neck, changing her attitude to one of utter supplication,--‘you have Edie and the boys, and my dearest love for ever and ever. And he has nobody; and he says,---- Will you only hear what he says? It is not fancy. He wants me most.’ It was not more than a minute that they stood thus clinging together, but Frank thought it an hour. He was left out of the matter. It was they who had to decide a question so momentous to them. And then he became aware that the padrona had cast her arms round her child to support herself, and was weeping wildly upon Alice’s shoulder. No need for any further questions. They had changed characters for the moment. The girl’s slight figure tottered, swayed, steadied itself, supporting with a supreme effort the weight of the mother’s yielding and anguish; and Alice gave him a look over that burthen,--a look of such pain and sweetness and confidence, that Frank’s heart was altogether melted. ‘Look what I have to bear,--what I have to give up for you!’ it seemed to say;--a pathetic glance; and yet there was in it the triumph of the new love rooting and establishing itself upon the ruins of the old.