“Bero.”

“And this is the day,” said Mae, dropping the note.

“And the very hour, allowing the bride and the sun a few minutes each,” added Norman, glancing at the clock.

They gaze quietly out of the window of their lodgings on the Borgo Ognissante, but Mae sees far away beyond the Arno, into the church of St. Andrea,—­music, and pomp, and beautiful ceremony, and before the altar, a woman in her bridal robes, with heavily figured lace falling over her black hair and white forehead, and against her soft cheeks and shoulders.  Her great brown eyes have thrown away the mist of sadness for a luminous wedding veil of joy, and she is Lillia, and by her side, erect, proud, glorious, with a lingering ray of light falling on his golden head, is her happy husband, Bero.  They stand before the altar of St. Andrea’s.  “God bless you,” says Mae aloud.  Then her gaze wanders back to the coral and mosaic shops below in the street, and up across to the opposite window, where a long-haired, brown-moustached, brown-eyed man leans, puffing smoke from his curved lips, and holding his cigarette in his slender fingers.  She meets his gaze now, as she has met it before.  “He is wondering what life will bring to these two young people, I fancy,” says Mae.

“Our own wedding-day, Mae,” Norman replies; and they both forget all about Lillia, and Bero, and the stranger, and suddenly leave the window.  The long-haired man puffs his cigar in a little loneliness, and wishes that wedding bells might ring for his empty heart too.