“The strong man’s heart was melted, and the nuns beheld him kneeling and weeping before the portrait of their abbess.

“But where was she?

“Nobody knew.  There was no clue—­except that the gondola of the convent was gone.

“Camillo took the portrait and stepped into his gondola.  He returned to the city, to the palace of Sulpizia’s parents.  Slowly he went up the great staircase, dark and silent, up which his eager steps had followed the flying feet of Sulpizia.  He entered the saloon slowly, like a man who carries a heavy burden—­but rather in his heart than in his hands.

“‘It is all that remains to you of your daughter,’ said he in a low voice, throwing back his cloak, and revealing the marvellous beauty of their child’s portrait to the amazed parents.  Then came the agony—­a child lost—­a friend false.

“Camillo returned to us and told the tale.  I felt my heart wither and grow old.  My mother was grieved in her heart for her son’s sorrow—­in her pride for its kind and method.  Fiora did not smile any more.  Her step was no longer bounding upon the floor and the stairs, and the year afterward she married the Marchese Cicada.

“The next day, Camillo returned to the island.  The abbess had not returned, nor had any tidings been received.  Only the gondola had been found in the morning in its usual place.  The days passed.  A new abbess was chosen.  The church did not dare to curse the fugitive, for there was no proof that she had willingly gone away.  It might be supposed—­it could not be proved.  Camillo hung in his chamber the unfinished portrait, and a black veil shrouded it from chance and curious eyes.  He did not seem altered.  He was still calm and grave—­still cold and sweet in his general intercourse.

“My friendship with him became more intimate.  He saw that I was much changed—­for although pride can do much, the heart is stronger than the head.  But he had no suspicion of the truth.  People who suffer intensely often forget that there are other sufferers in the world, you know.  Camillo was very tender toward me, for he thought that I was paying the penalty of too warm a sympathy with him, and often begged me not to wear away my health and youth in commiseration for what was past and hopeless.  I cultivated my consciousness of his suffering as a defence against my own.  We never mentioned the names of either of those of whom we were always thinking; but once in many months he would call me into his chamber and remove the veil from the portrait, while we stood before it as silent as devotees in a church before the picture of the Madonna.  Camillo pursued his affairs—­the cares of his estate—­the duties of society.  He assembled all the strangers of distinction at his table.  Yes, it was a rare and great triumph.