no taste for the sublime. Mountains are all very well in their way; but give me Suffolk!"

The next morning, we took the railway back again to Marseilles, and embarked on board the French boat for Civita Vecchia.

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CHAPTER XIX.

THE OLD, OLD STORY.

"He is but a landscape painter,

And a village maiden she."

TENNYSON.

JANUARY, February, March went by; April came ; and still there was no sign or word from Hugh. Hilda went off to Naples with her obedient husband, for the fashionable season. Ida completed her large picture, and despatched it to Zollenstrasse for the approaching competition. Paolo, after lingering in Rome week after week, lost faith in my ability to help him, and went back to his wife and home in Capri. In the meantime my aunt came to live with us in the Vicolo d'Aliberti, and we engaged all the upper portion of the house, and a

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couple of good servants for her accommodation. In the meantime, also, my darling throve like a young plant in the sunshine, drinking in strength and beauty from every fragrant breath that stirred the opening blossoms of the spring. He knew me now-held out his little arms when he saw me from afar off--smiled when I smiled; and testified his love in a thousand fond and helpless ways, scarcely intelligible to any eyes but mine.

"Methought his looks began to talk with me;
And no articulate sounds, but something sweet
His lips would frame."

Heaven knows I needed all the unconscious comfort his baby-heart could give! I was very wretched.

It was the mystery that made my life so miserable-the painful, oppressive, entangling mystery, that haunted me perpetually, sleeping or waking, till my brain ached, and my very soul was weary.

The letter had been delivered-that was certain. Immediately after its delivery, Hugh had left Chambery for Grenoble-that also was certain. From Grenoble he had taken his departure, after one night's delay, by railway; and from this point all trace of him disappeared. He had left no address. He had neither written to Mrs. Sandyshaft, nor to any of his own people at Broomhill. He had totally, unaccountably, mysteriously

vanished; and with him had also vanished Tippoo and Maddalena. Sometimes I thought he must have been murdered by banditti, and buried where he fell. Sometimes I asked myself if Maddalena could have poisoned him in some fierce passion of jealousy and despair? She was Italian, and her black eyes had in them "something dangerous." Again, I questioned if he had ever received Mrs. Sandyshaft's letter. The clerk believed that he had delivered it to a lady. That lady must have been Maddalena; and what if she had destroyed it? Supposing this, would he not have marvelled at my aunt's long silence, and have written to her at the Neapolitan office?

These questions tormented me; pursued me; poisoned the very air and sunshine around me ; and made my life one long, sickening, heart-breaking suspense. In vain those around me preached the wisdom and necessity of patience. I could endure, and I could suffer; but there was no patience for such a burthen of anxiety as mine.

Thus the slow weeks dragged past, and hope gradually died away, and I made up my mind that I should never see him more.

And now my turn had come to grow pale and absent to pore upon the map, and say "If I had taken this direction, I should have met him;" or "If I had gone at once, I should have found him"

to rack my brain with suppositions, and my heart with bitter reproaches. It was retribution, literal, terrible, torturing. Retribution dealt out evenhanded; measure for measure; cup for cup, to the last drop of the draught. My aunt never reproached me now; but my self-condemnation was enough. In every pang that I suffered, I remembered those which my flight had inflicted on him. In every dark conjecture that sent a shudder through my whole being, I recognised his anguish. It was a woful time; and any fault that had been mine in the past was expiated to the utmost.

One afternoon, very early in April, Ida came to me in my little painting-room, and sat down on a stool at my feet. I was alone, and had been brooding over my grief for hours in silence. She took my hand, and laid her cheek upon it, tenderly.

"My poor Barbara," said she, "you have been solitary. Where is Mrs. Sandyshaft ?”

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Out, dear. She dines to-day at her banker's, after accompanying them in a drive to Antemnæ and Fidena."

“Had I known that, I would have stayed at home. It is not good for you to be alone."

"Nay, dear, it makes little difference," I replied, sadly.