“Is General Laurance pleading abstractly for forgiveness for his vain and presumptuous sex?”

“Solely for my own audacious impertinence, which, had I known you, would never have been perpetrated.  My rejected emeralds accuse me.  Pardon me, and I will immediately donate them in expiatory offering to some Foundling Asylum, Hospital, or other public charity.”

“If I condone past offences, it must be upon condition that they are never repeated, for leniency is not one of my characteristics.  Hitherto we have been strangers; you are from America the land of my adoption, and have been presented to me as a gentleman, as the friend of my physician.  Henceforth consider that your acquaintance with me dates from to-day.”

She suffered him to take her hand, and bow low over it, breathing, volubly his thanks for her goodness, his protestations of profound repentance, and undying gratitude; and all the while she shut her eyes as if to hide some approaching horror,—­and the blood in her views seemed to freeze at his touch, gathered like icicles around her aching heart, turning her gradually to stone.

Taking his offered arm, they walked back toward the spot where she had desired her companions to await her return, and as he attempted to analyze the strange perplexing expression on her chiselled white face, he said: 

“I trust this delicious climate has fully restored your health?”

“Thank you.  I am as well as I hope to be, until I can go home to America, and be once more with my baby.”

“It is difficult to realize that you are a mother.  How old is this darling, who steals so many of your thoughts?”

“Oh, quite a large girl now! able to write me long delightful letters; still in memory and imagination she remains my baby, for I have not seen her for nearly seven years.”

“Indeed I you must have married when a mere child?”

“Yes, unfortunately I did, and lost my husband, became a destitute widow when I was scarcely older than my own daughter now is.  Mr. Waul, this is your countryman, General Laurance; and doubtless you have mutual acquaintances in the United States.”

They proceeded to the carriage, and as he assisted her to enter it, General Laurance asked: 

“Will you grant me the privilege of accompanying you next week to Baiae?”

“I cannot promise that.”

“Then allow me to call upon you to-morrow.”

“To-morrow will be the day for my exercises in Italian recitation and declamation.  I am desirous of perfecting myself in the delicate inflections of this sweet intoxicating language, which is as deliciously soft as its native skies, and golden as its Capri vintage.  I long to electrify these fervid enthusiastic yet critical Neapolitans with one of their own favourite impassioned Italian dramas.”