“Ah, that is impossible!  She is already affianced—­”

Aubrey took his arm.

“Come with me, and I will tell you all I know,” he said—­“For there is much to say,—­and when you have heard everything, you may not be altogether without hope.”

They turned, and went towards the Corso, which they presently entered, and where numbers of passers-by paused involuntarily to look at the two men who offered such a marked contrast to each other,—­the one brown-haired and lithe, with dark, eager eyes,—­the other with the slim well set up figure of an athlete, and the fair head of a Saxon king.  And of the many who so looked after them, none guessed that the one was destined in a few years’ time to create a silent and bloodless French Revolution, which should give back to France her white lilies of faith and chivalry,—­or that the other was the upholder of such a perfect form of Christianity as should soon command the following of thousands in all parts of the world.

And while they thus walked through the Roman crowd, the two women they severally loved were talking of them.  In Angela’s sick-room, softly shaded from the light, with a cheery wood fire burning, Sylvie sat by her friend, telling her all she could think of that would interest her, and rouse her from the deep gravity of mood in which she nearly always found her.  The weary days of pain and illness had given Angela a strange, new beauty,—­her face, delicate and pale, seemed transfigured by the working of the soul within,—­ and her eyes, tired as they were and often heavy with tears, had a serenity in their depths which was not of earth, but all of Heaven.  She was able now to move from her bed, and lie on a couch near the fire,—­and her little white hands moved caressingly and with loving care among the bunches of beautiful flowers which Sylvie had laid on her coverlet,—­daffodils, anemones, narcissi, violets, jonquils, and all the sweet-scented flowers of early spring which come to Rome in December from the blossoming fields of Sicily.

“How sweet they are!” she said with a half sigh,—­“They almost make me in love with life again!”

Sylvie said nothing, but only kissed her.

“How good you are to me, dearest Sylvie!” she then said—­“You deserve to be very happy!”

“Not half so much as you do!” responded Sylvie tenderly—­“I am of no use at all to the world; and you are!  The world would not miss me a bit, but it would not find an Angela Sovrani again in a hurry!”

Angela raised a cluster of narcissi and inhaled their fine and delicate perfume.  There were tears in her eyes, but she hid them with a spray of the flowers.

“Ah, Sylvie, you think too well of me!  To be famous is nothing.  To be loved is everything!”

Sylvie looked at her earnestly.

“You are loved,” she said.

“No, no!” she said—­“No, I am not loved.  I am hated!  Hush, Sylvie!—­ do not say one word of what is in your mind, for I will not hear it!”