and promised him not to go. But in the morning when she was alone, a fear came over her that it might after all turn out to be true, and if so, her mother would die and would curse her own child on her death-bed. So she took a carriage, and promised the driver a double fare if he would take her in half the usual time. She got out, however, at the foot of the hill, wishing to reach her mother's house alone and unobserved. But as soon as she neared the first houses she had a sense of some one following her, and for protection she ran rather than walked towards my door, when suddenly Domenico appeared behind her, and called out, without however looking at her: 'What, Erminia, do we see you here again? That is well, it was time you should come to your senses!' 'What have you to do with my senses?' she replied; 'you have no hold upon me for good or bad.' 'Indeed!' said he, drawing closer and closer, 'all the same one does not like the disgrace to attach to our village of having no young man worthy of such a jewel. Probably you have now found out that your foreigner was but a poor make-believe, like the rest, and that you would do better to remain at home.' And she. 'What I think of him is my affair. Why do you always come after me? You knew long ago what I think of you.' Then seizing her arm he said in a hoarse voice, 'For the last time, Erminia, I give you warning. Renounce him, or both you and he will have to rue it. I cannot prevent your loving him, but that he should rob you of honour and happiness, that as sure as GOD lives I will prevent and that shortly. Do you understand me?' Then she stood still, looked him full in the face, and said, 'You and no one else wrote that letter.' And he, without answering, went on as before. 'Will you give him up and remain here?' Then when she continued silent, and shook her head resolutely, he three times repeated the same question. 'Will you, Erminia, give him up and remain here?' And when she pretended not even to be aware that any one was speaking to her, but quickened her steps fearing that he might do her some violence in the deserted piazza, she suddenly felt his hand grasp her arm as in a vice, heard the words, 'To hell, then, with your Lutheran,' and in the same moment fell down mortally wounded close to my door.

"And now she had no wish, she said, but that her lover should forgive her for leaving him against his will; she expiated it dearly enough. He had meant to make her his wife, and take her to his own home. Instead of that she must go down into the grave, and who could say whether the Virgin Mary would intercede for her; and whether she should ever pass out of the pains of purgatory into the Heavenly Paradise!

"That was the last sentence that crossed her lips, then her head sank back, and she was dead!"

When the little man had got so far, he stretched himself back in his arm-chair, and closed his eyes with a deep sigh. After some minutes so spent he sprang up, walked several times to and fro in his dark shop, and seemed to make a strong effort to recover his self-control. At length he stood still beside me, laid his hand on my shoulder, and said, "What after all is human life, amico mio! A fleeting nothing! grass that is green in the field to-day, and to-morrow dry and withered. Hay, that the insatiable monster death crams his maw with! Basta! There is no waking the dead! She was a wonder of the world while she lived, she was wondrous still when her fair silent form was no longer warmed by a drop of life-blood, and her soul no more susceptible of joy or of sorrow. There she lay in the room yonder, and until she was buried I never left her night or day. When sleep overcame me, I still held a corner of her dress in my hand, and thought myself highly favoured in that at least in death I was nearer to her than any other. But by the second night another came. The door opened, and the captain stole in on tip-toe, as though he might still run a risk of disturbing her sleep. We did not exchange a word, only I began to weep like a child when he so mutely, and with such a look of despair in his eyes, approached the bier. Then he sat down beside her and gazed steadily upon her face. I went out, I could not endure his presence any more than if I myself had been her murderer.

"The next day when the funeral took place and the whole village was gathered in the church-yard, even before the priest had blessed the coffin, there rose a murmur and a stir among the dense crowd. And the captain, whom no one knew to be in the place, was seen striding through the people with a look on his face that terrified them all. He took his station close beside the grave, and threw two handsfull of earth on the coffin. Then he knelt down, and every one else was on his homeward way while he remained prostrate on the newly-made grave, as though he would force himself through the earth, and make his bed there. I was obliged to drag him away into my house, where for some days he remained as though in a trance, and I could hardly get him to take a spoonful of soup or a drop of wine. Four days passed before he seemed to come to himself at all, but even then he continued silent, and it was only in bidding me farewell, before he went off again in my little conveyance, that he begged me to oblige him by buying for him the house with the vineyard that he had once before looked at. In eight days he said he should return, and then make his home with us for life.

"I did not dare to remonstrate, although I could not approve the plan--partly because, of Domenico, of whom it was known that he had fled to the mountains, and joined a party of banditti, and partly because I had always been fond of the Swede; and could have wished that he should not by living near this grave keep the wound in his heart for ever bleeding. But, however, I knew well that he must have his own way, let Heaven or Hell oppose him, and so I laid myself out to render him any service that I could, for her sake who had been dear to me too, and to whom even beyond the grave I could still prove my good-will by befriending her beloved.

"And in a week's time he actually came and took possession of the house which stood about a mile from the village in a tolerably large vineyard, not far from the ravine where the chestnuts are; a lovely, solitary spot for a man at least who had no fear, good weapons at hand, and a faithful dog for companion. But the latter was not the only living creature that joined him. Erminia's sister Maddalena insisted on doing so, that she might wash and cook for him, and keep his house while he was on his rambles. Nothing could have suited him better, though people in general shunned her. But he knew that her dead sister had bequeathed her own love and fidelity towards him to this poor creature. And so the singular pair lived on in their solitude, and never seemed to concern themselves about the rest of the world.

"I went to see him a few days after his arrival. The house had once belonged to a Roman noble, and was still in tolerable condition, though the old furniture was covered with dust and cobwebs which Maddalena never disturbed. She had been used to worse in her mother's ruinous hovel under the roof of the fig-tree. But in the neglected garden she had somewhat bestirred herself, and planted a few beds with vegetables, and the locks of all the doors had been repaired and new bolts added. 'She insisted upon it,' said the captain; 'she is continually dreaming of an attack upon us.' 'Dreams are not always mere moonshine,' returned I, but he paid no attention. He went before me up the stone steps, and opened the door of the familiar salon, the balcony of which looked on the garden. This was the only room that he inhabited; he had made a bed out of an old divan, and cleaned the rubbish out of the corners singlehanded, but he could not stop up the countless holes in the walls through which bats and squirrels went in and out. My first glance fell on a stand against the wall,