“No, mama, for now I am seventeen years old, and can reason quite like a woman. I have seen what I have told you--that we two are alone in the world together, friendless and seemingly shunned. We rove from clime to clime like two restless ghosts, yet everywhere some dark shadow of destiny follows us. We seem to be known and remarked even in places that are strange to us. As for you, I comprehend that you are bitterly unhappy, for I have never seen a smile upon your lips. Mama, why is it so? Why are we branded and set apart from the rest of the world?” The blue-eyed mother sobbed bitterly: “The moment I have dreaded so long has come at last. I must confess the truth to my child. God grant her strength to bear the cross.” She kissed the eager, upturned face, and her tears fell on its wondrous beauty. “Oh, my love, my love, how cruel Fate has been to us!” she cried. “I might have been so happy, and you might have reigned like a little queen, but, alas, alas! one dark moment of horror changed both our lives--turned sunshine to darkness, happiness to despair.” The girl’s white arms, that were a very poem of beauty, encircled the drooping form, the red lips kissed the tears away, and the sweet voice murmured tenderly: “And you have not deserved that the winds of Fate should blow roughly upon you, my dearest one.” “God bless you for those loving words, my child. Oh, what a treasure is your faith and love! May they not fail me when you learn of the shadow that has darkened your life and mine,” sighed Mrs. Vale, and, after a moment, she added falteringly: “Italy, dear, you have been told that your father died in your early childhood, but you have never known what I must tell you now. He--my poor husband--was--murdered!” “Oh, Heaven!” and Italy’s dark, silken head dropped half-fainting upon her mother’s knee, her eyes closed upon the blue Italian landscape that seemed blurred by a strange mist. Mrs. Vale’s thin, blue-veined hand fell in tender caressing upon the dark curls. “Be brave, dear, for there is more to tell, and it is so horrible,” she sobbed. “Oh, Italy, I, your mother, his cherished wife, was accused of my husband’s murder, and tried for my life!” “Oh, Heaven!” again sobbed the girl, and a convulsive shudder passed over the kneeling form. Mrs. Vale shuddered, too, and after a moment added brokenly: “Tried and acquitted.” Italy half-raised her head, a sob of joy quivering over her lips, but again Mrs. Vale spoke: “The circumstantial evidence was not strong enough to convict, so the jury acquitted me--but--public opinion adjudged me guilty. The judge and jury that acquitted me were hissed in the crowded court-room. I, too, was hissed as I left it, and ever since that day a malicious clamor has hounded my friendless footsteps through the world.” She paused, and the low winds sighing through the blossoming limes seemed to echo the despair of her voice.