She went at once, pain and delight struggling together in her heart.  He led her to the sofa, and sank down to the cushion at her feet, bowing his head to her knees.  And there he poured out his whole story, sparing her nothing.

Perhaps an instinct of justice and mercy ran through his passion.  Perhaps, guessing in the soft, tremulous, soothing hands that touched his hair and forehead the love that he had believed to be dead, and with an unconscious feeling that she was to be the consoler and companion of his future life, he felt also that all the pain she was to suffer for this love of his must be gone through with now.

He could not understand that her only pain was for him, and that for herself she was blest.  For she had his confidence, and she could console him.

From that night he became her constant escort and companion.  He wrote a brief note in answer to Mrs. Lindsay’s, and then he seemed to forget that he knew any one in Palazzo Pesaro.

“For the present I am de trop” he wrote, “but I will see you before you go away.  All happiness to Aurora and her chosen husband.”

Impossibility is a wonderful extinguisher of desire; and what suffering was left to him was not so much a sickness as the languor of convalescence.  He saw Aurora but seldom, and always at a distance; but he knew that Venetian society was rejoicing over the engagement, and that the duke was a devoted lover.

Once, in passing by, he glanced involuntarily at the windows, and saw a group inside, the sight of which gave him a momentary pang.  D’Rubiera seemed to be placing something on Aurora’s head, and Mrs. Lindsay clapped her hands.

The duke was, in fact, trying a coronet on his future wife.  He had sent for the family jewels, and was to have them reset, and Mrs. Lindsay clapped her hands at seeing the diamonds on Aurora’s hair.

D’Rubiera was an impatient and peremptory wooer, and he won the day.  They were to be married in June; and the Lindsays would stay in Venice a month longer to witness the ceremony.

Fra Antonio came from Sassovivo and joined their hands in Saint Mark’s, gold and rank smoothing away all obstacles.  Then they went to England for the boy, and came back in time for a week at Bellmar.  After Bellmar, they went to Sassovivo, unannounced, to break open the walled-up gate and carry jubilee into the castle, the duke said.

In fact, they spent a whole day long in the castle, tranquilly watching from its windows the visitors who went to the villa in vain to ossequiare the master and his new duchess.  It was the last time that they would enter the castle as master and mistress; for the Signora Paula and Martina were coming to live there,—­forever, if they pleased.