so long.  It may soon be all I have to live on.  If Del Ferice should have the bad taste to follow Donna Tullia to Saint Lawrence’s, nothing could save me.  I should no longer have the alternative of remaining his slave in exchange for safety from bankruptcy to myself and ruin—­or something like it—­to my father.

“But let us talk no more about it all.  But for your kindly letter, no one would ever have known all this, except Contini.  In your calm Egyptian life—­thank God, dear, that your life is calm!—­my story must sound like a fragment from an unpleasant dream.  One thing you do not tell me.  Are you happy, as well as peaceful?  I would like to know.  I am not.

     “Pray write again, when you have time—­and inclination.  If there is
     anything to be done for you in Rome—­any little thing, or great
     thing either—­command your old friend,

     “Orsino Saracinesca.”

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Orsino posted his letter with an odd sensation of relief.  He felt that he was once more in communication with humanity, since he had been able to speak out and tell some one of the troubles that oppressed him.  He had assuredly no reason for being more hopeful than before, and matters were in reality growing more serious every day; but his heart was lighter and he took a more cheerful view of the future, almost against his own better judgment.

He had not expected to receive an answer from Maria Consuelo for some time and was surprised when one came in less than ten days from the date of his writing.  This letter was short, hurriedly written and carelessly worded, but there was a ring of anxiety for him in every line of it which he could not misinterpret.  Not only did she express the deepest sympathy for him and assure him that all he did still had the liveliest interest for her, but she also insisted upon being informed of the state of his affairs as often as possible.  He had spoken of three possibilities, she said.  Was there not a fourth somewhere?  There might often be an issue from the most desperate situation, of which no one dreamed.  Could she not help him to discover where it lay in this case?  Could they not write to each other and find it out together?

Orsino looked uneasily at the lines, and the blood rose to his temples.  Did she mean what she said, or more, or less?  He was overwrought and over-sensitive, and she had written thoughtlessly, as though not weighing her words, but only following an impulse for which she had no time to find the proper expression.  She could not imagine that he would accept substantial help from her—­still less that he would consent to marry her for the sake of the fortune which might save him.  He grew very angry, then turned cold again, and then, reading the words again, saw that he had no right to attach any such meaning to them.  Then it struck him that even if, by any possibility,