"O, I am going to Genoa for my pleasure, and shall be glad of your company. The steamer for Como touches here this afternoon. 'Dull not device by coldness and delay;' we will go on board, and be in Milan to-morrow." They conversed for an hour, when Morton withdrew to adjust his new disguise. Wentworth followed him with his eye as he disappeared; then sank into the musing mood which had grown habitual to him. "When I saw him last,"--so his thoughts shaped themselves,--"my drama was opening; and now it is played out--light and darkness, smiles and tears--and the curtain is dropped forever. When I saw him last, I was gathering the prairie flowers and dedicating them to her,--though she did not suspect it,--and dreaming of her by camp fires and in night watches." The miniature still lay on the table. He drew it towards him and gazed on it fixedly:-- "Mine for a space, and now--gone--vanished like a dream. You were a meteor between earth and sky, with a light that flickered and blazed and darkened, but a warmth constant and unchanged. Of all who admired the brightness of that erratic star, how few could know what gladness it shed around it, what desolation it has left behind!" He gazed on the picture till his eyes grew dim; then sat for a few moments, listless and abstracted; then rose, with an effort, and bent his mind to the task before him. CHAPTER XLVII. O that a man might know The end of this day's business ere it come.--_Julius Caesar_. The diligence rolled into Genoa. Wentworth was in the _coupe_, and on the top sat Morton, as his servant. They had made the journey without interruption. Morton reported himself to the American consul, and told his story. The wrath and astonishment of that official were great; but they were as nothing to the patriotic fury of three New York dry goods importers, who, mingling pleasure with business, were just arrived from Paris. Nothing was talked of but an immediate bombardment of Trieste, and a probable assault of Vienna. Escaping as soon as he could from this demonstration, Morton bade his fervid countrymen good morning, and went out with Wentworth, who introduced him to his banker. He learned from the consul that a merchant brig was in port, nearly ready to sail for home, and gladly took passage in her.