and of the daughter, though they tried to seem calm and gay, died away like a sigh in the shadow of the infinite vault.

Suddenly the electric bell echoed through a long suite of brilliant but deserted rooms.

A silent servant walking on his tiptoes preceded the doctor, who was an old family friend, and seemed to be the only calm person, while all the rest were full of anxiety. The countess stood up, unable to hide her nervous agitation.

"Good evening

I'm a little late to-day. I am just finishing my round of calls. And how is the young lady?"

He had taken his seat by the bedside. Then when he had asked to have the shade removed from the lamp, he began his examination of the invalid, holding between his white, fat fingers the girl's colorless, delicate wrist, and asking her the usual questions.

The countess replied with a slight tremor of anxiety in her voice; Bice with monosyllables in a feeble tone, keeping her bright restless eyes fixed on the doctor.

In the reception-room was heard the subdued sound of the bell several times repeated, announcing other visitors; and the chambermaid entered like a shadow to whisper into the countess's ear the names of the intimate friends who had come to inquire after the young countess.

Suddenly the doctor raised his head:

"Who is it that just entered the drawing-room?" he asked with a certain vivacity.

Marquis Danei," replied the countess.

"The usual medicine for to-night," continued the doctor, as if he had forgotten what he had asked. "We must take notice at what hour the fever begins. Otherwise there is nothing new. We must give time for the cure."

The

But he did not take his fingers off the girl's wrist, and he fixed a scrutinizing look on her. She had closed her eyes. mother waited anxiously. For a moment her daughter's brilliant eyes looked into hers, and then a sudden flush of color glowed in Bice's face.

"For heaven's sake, doctor, for heaven's sake!" exclaimed the countess in a supplicating voice, as she accompanied the doctor into the drawing-room, paying no attention to the friends and relatives who were waiting there chattering in low voices, "how do you think my daughter is this evening? Tell me the truth."

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"Nothing new," he replied; "the usual touch of fever, the usual nervous disturbance."

But as soon as they had reached a small room on one side, he planted himself directly in front of the countess, and said brusquely:

"Your daughter is in love with this Signor Danei."

The countess uttered not a word in reply. Only she grew horribly pale, and instinctively put her hand to her heart.

"I have been suspecting it for some time," continued the doctor, with a sort of harsh outspokenness. "Now I am sure of it. It makes a complication in her illness which on account of the patient's extreme sensitiveness at this moment might become serious. We must think it over."

"He!"

That was the first word that escaped from the countess's lips. It seemed to be spoken outside of her.

"Yes: her pulse told me so. Has she never shown any sign of it? Have you never suspected anything of the sort?" "Never! Bice is so timid

"Does the Marquis Danei come to the house often?"

The poor woman, under the keen penetrating eyes of this man who seemed to have assumed the importance of a judge, stammered, "Y-yes."

"We doctors sometimes have the cure of souls," added the doctor with a smile. "Perhaps it was a fortunate thing that he came while I was here."

"But all hope is not lost, is it, doctor?- for the love of God!"

"No. It depends on circumstances. Good evening."

The countess remained a moment in that same room, which was almost dark, wiping with her handkerchief the cold perspiration that stood out on her temples. Then she went back through the drawing-room swiftly, greeting her friends with a nod, and scarcely looking at Danei, who was in a corner among the inti

mates.

"Bice! My daughter! The doctor thinks you are better to-day: did you know it?"

"Yes, mama!" replied the girl gently, with that heart-chilling indifference characteristic of those who are very ill.

"Some of our friends are here; they came on your account. Would you like to see any of them?"

"Who are here?"

"Well, a number of them: your aunt Augusta, Signor Danei. Shall they come in for a little moment?"

Bice closed her eyes as if she were tired out, and she was so pale that in the semi-darkness a faint tint of pink could be seen mounting to her cheek.

"No, mama, I do not wish to see any one."

Through her closed eyelids, delicate as rose-leaves, she felt her mother's keen and sorrowful eyes fixed upon her. Suddenly she opened them, and flung her slender trembling arms around her neck with an inexpressible mingling of confusion, tenderness, and vexation. Mother and daughter held each other long in a close embrace, without saying a word, weeping tears which they would have been glad to hide.

The relatives and friends who were anxiously waiting to hear about the invalid had the usual report from the countess, who stood right in the middle of the drawing-room, unable to repress an inward tension that now and again cut her breath short. When they had all taken their departure, she and Danei remained face to face. Many times during Bice's illness they had been left alone together for a little time, as they were now, in the window recess, exchanging a few words of comfort and hope, or absorbed in a silence that blended their thoughts and minds in the same painful preoccupation; sad and precious moments, in which she gained the courage and the power to re-enter into the close and lugubrious atmosphere of the sick-room with a smile of encouragement.

She stood some time without opening her mouth, her hand pressed to her forehead. She had such an expression of sadness in her whole appearance that Danei did not know what to say. At last he took her hand. She withdrew it. "Listen, Roberto. I have something to tell you, something on which my daughter's life depends."

He waited, grave, a little anxious.

"Bice loves you."

Danei looked confounded, gazing at the countess, who had hidden her face in her hands and was sobbing.

"She? It is impossible! Just consider!"

"No.

The idea was suggested by the doctor, and now I am sure of it. She is dying of love for you."

"I swear to you, I swear to you that

"I know it; I believe you; I have no need of seeking the reason why my daughter loves you, Roberto," exclaimed the mother, sadly. And she sank down on the sofa. Roberto was He tried to take her hand again.

also agitated. withheld it.

"Anna!"

She gently

"No, no!" she replied resolutely. And the silent tears seemed to furrow her delicate cheeks, as if years-years of grief and punishment - had been suddenly thrust into her thoughtless

life.

The silence seemed insurmountable.

At last Roberto mur

mured, "What do you wish me to do? Tell me."

She looked at him with unspeakable anguish and perplexity, and stammered, "I don't know -I don't know. to her. Leave me alone! "

Let me go back

When the countess returned to the sick-room, her daughter's eyes in the shadow of the curtain were fixed on her with such a singularly ardent flame that her mother's blood seemed frozen as she stood on the threshold.

"Mama!" cried Bice, "who is in there now?"

"No one, dear."

"Ah! stay with me, then. Don't leave me."

And the girl grasped her hands, trembling.

"Poor little girl! Poor dear! You will soon be well. Don't you know the doctor said so?

"Yes, mama."

"And-and-you shall be happy.

The daughter still looked at her mother in the same way. "Yes, mama."

Then she closed her eyes, which seemed black in their sunken sockets. A death-like silence followed. The mother gazed at that pale and impenetrable face before her with keen eyes, flushing and then turning pale.

Suddenly a deep pallor came over her face, and she cried in an altered voice, "Bice!"

Her breast heaved spasmodically as if something were struggling with death within. Then she leaned over her daughter, placing her feverish cheek upon the other cheek so thin and pale, and whispered in her daughter's ear almost so low as to be unintelligible, "Do you hear, Bice? You love him?"

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Bice suddenly opened her eyes wide; her face was all aflame. And with those wide-open and almost frightened eyes, fascinated by her mother's tearful face, she stammered with an indescribable accent of bitterness, and as it were of reproach, "O mama!"

Then the hapless woman, feeling that accent and that exclamation penetrate to the very depths of her heart, had the courage to add, "Danei has asked for your hand."

"O mama! O mama!" said the girl, again and again, with the same beseeching and agonized tone, wrapping the sheet around her with a sense of shame. "Mamma mia!"

The countess, who seemed as if she were on the verge of fainting, stammered, "But if you do not love him -if you do not love him >> - tell me

say so

The girl listened, palpitating, anxious, moving her lips without uttering a word, with her eyes wide open, and seeming too large for her wasted face, gazing into her mother's eyes. Suddenly as her mother bent over her, she threw her arms around her neck, trembling all over, pressing her with all the power of her slender arms, with an effusion that told the whole story.

The mother, in an impulse of despairing love, sobbed, "You shall get well, you shall get well."

And she also trembled convulsively.

The next day the countess was waiting for Danei in her boudoir, sitting near the grate and stretching toward the fire her hands that were so white that they seemed bloodless, and with her eyes fixed on the flames. What thoughts, what visions, what recollections, were passing before those eyes! The first time that she had felt disturbed at the sight of Roberto- the silence that had unexpectedly come upon them - the first words of love that he had whispered in her ear as he bent his head and lowered his voice-the delicious quickening of the pulse that sent the color to her cheeks and neck as she saw him waiting in the vestibule of the Apollo to see her pass, handsome, elegant, in her white satin mantellina. Then afterwards, the long rose-colored day-dreams in that very spot, the palpitating intense joys, the feverish expectation, during those hours when Bice was taking her music-lesson or drawing.

Now at the sound of the bell she arose with a nervous tremor; and immediately by an effort of the will she sat down again. with her hands crossed on her lap.