Such was the news which banished the last ray of hope from every breast;--no, not from every breast, one still madly hoped on. But it was a hope that belied itself, for the despairing Florence showed her belief, though she owned it not, by wearing the garb of mourning. It was a hope which killed its victim. As the power of swimming holds up the shipwrecked mariner only a little longer on the wide waters, and makes the pang of sinking at last only more intense, as he strikes for the light far in front which he knows he has not the strength to reach, so Florence's only fed her despair. This despairing, unbelieving grief was like a blight at the core; the heart's woe slowly, but surely, worked its desolations on the fair, frail bearer. It was slowly received, but lasting; as the frost at night imperceptibly, but surely, freezes the waters that sleep beneath its chilling breath; or better still, the unseen, unnoticed, petrifying water hardens, chills, deadens, the living grass that grows green on its banks--so with Lady Florence, the grief at first discredited, then doubted, and little by little gradually imbibed into her heart, and believed--whilst she denied the pang that killed her, showed its outward ravages on the pale cheek, tinted with a hectic flush that told its tale, and in the eye unnaturally bright. Her friends saw the dire premonitions of her fate, and her brother took the best medical advice. But the heart's wounds are not to be cured, and when the seat of life is touched, when the root is blighted, woe to the branches! When the doctor saw his patient he pronounced it at once a lost case; that fast decline no mortal hand could arrest, its stay could only be gained by an immediate removal to a warmer climate. Madeira was first chosen, but as the Villa Reale at Naples had every comfort of an English house the doctor decided on her departure thither, stating that every hour spent in this damp, foggy country was a day lost. The Earl and Countess, deeply grieved not only at the untimely death of the young and promising soldier, who had perished, "As on that night of stormy water When love, who sent, forgot to save The young, the beautiful, the brave, The lonely hope of Sestos' daughter--" but also at the near prospect of another loss to add to their woe, delayed not in obeying their medical adviser, and at once started for Naples in their yacht, "The Star of the Sea." The voyage was specially recommended, so they sailed with the invalid about to end her short life amid the flowers and myrtle-groves of Ausonia's sunny clime and favoured shores! CHAPTER X. "And one, o'er her the myrtle showers Its leaves, by soft winds fanned; She faded midst Italian flowers, The last of that bright band!"--_Hemans._