“So she died?”

“A year later.  He never got over it.  Even while I speak to you, he in his loneliness is pondering and weeping over these very lines which you have just read without a suspicion of the depth of their bitterness.”

“He has known bereavement,” said she; “I pity him with all my heart.”

Her eyes filled with tears.  She repeated the words, whose meaning was now clear to her, “A to Rafaella.”  Then she knelt down softly before the mournful inscription.  I saw her bow her head.  Jeanne was praying.

It was touching to see the young girl, whom chance had placed before this simple testimony of a sorrow now long past, deeply moved by the sad tale of love, filled with tender pity for the dead Rafaella, her fellow in youth and beauty and perhaps in destiny, finding in her heart the tender impulse to kneel without a word, as if beside the grave of a friend.  The daylight’s last rays streaming in through the window illumined her bowed head.

I drew back, with a touch of awe.

M. Charnot appeared.

He went up to his daughter and tapped her on the shoulder.  She rose with a blush.

“What are you doing there?” he said.

Then he adjusted his glasses and read the Italian inscription.

“You really take unnecessary trouble in kneeling down to decipher a thing like that.  You can see at once that it’s a modern panel, and of no value.  Monsieur,” he added, turning to me, “I do not know what your plans are, but unless you intend to sleep at Desio, we must be off, for the night is falling.”

We left the villa.

Out of doors it was still light, but with the afterglow.  The sun was out of sight, but the earth was still enveloped, as it were, in a haze of luminous dust.

M. Charnot pulled out his watch.

“Seven minutes past eight.  What time does the last train start, Jeanne?”

“At ten minutes to eight.”

“Confusion! we are stranded in Desio!  The mere thought of passing the night in that inn gives me the creeps.  I see no way out of it unless Monsieur Mouillard can get us one of the Count’s state coaches.  There isn’t a carriage to be got in this infernal village!”

“There is mine, Monsieur, which luckily holds four, and is quite at your service.”

“Upon my word, I am very much obliged to you.  The drive by moonlight will be quite romantic.”

He drew near to Jeanne and whispered in her ear: 

“Are you sure you’ve wraps enough? a shawl, or a cape, or some kind of pelisse?”

She gave a merry nod of assent.

“Don’t worry yourself, father; I am prepared for all emergencies.”

At half-past eight we left Desio together, and I silently blessed the host of the Albergo dell’ Agnello, who had assured me that the carriage road was “so much more picturesque.”  I found it so, indeed.