LITMIR.BIZ

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association with hearts that have beaten for ours, and then sometimes she tells us all. But the heart itself is the thing, the reality, the seat of all our thoughts and the stay of all our being. Selfishly we see what it does in ourselves, and in others we may see it and watch it without thought of self. It is asleep to-day, lethargic, heavy, dull, scarce moving in the breast that holds it. To-morrow it is awake, leaping, breaking, splendidly alive, the very source of action, the leader in life's fight, the conqueror of the whole opposing world, bursting to-day the chains of which only yesterday it could not lift a link, overthrowing now, with a touch, the barriers which once seemed so impenetrable and so strong, scorning the deathlike inaction of the past, tossing the mountains of impossibility before it as a child tosses pebbles by the sea. The miracle is done, and love has done it, as only love really can.

      But it must be the right sort of love and the heart it touches must be neither common nor unclean in the broad, true sense—such a heart, say, as Herbert Arden's, and such love as he felt for Laura, then and afterwards.

      "My life began on the evening when I first met you, dear," he said, as they sat by the open window on Easter Day, looking down at the flowers on the terrace behind the Palazzo Braccio.

      "You cannot make me believe that you loved me at first sight!" Laura laughed happily.

      "Why not?" he asked gravely. "No woman ever spoke to me as you did then, and I felt it. Is it strange? But it hurt me, too, at first, and I used to suffer during that first month."

      "Let that be the first and the last pain you ever have by me," answered the young girl. "I know you suffered, though I cannot even now tell why. Can you?"

      "Easily enough," said Arden, resting his chin upon his folded hands as they lay upon the white marble sill of the window, scarcely less white than they. The attitude was habitual to him when he was in that place. He could not rest his elbow on the slab as Laura could, for he was too short as he sat in his chair.

      "Easily?" she asked. "Then tell me."

      "Very easily. You can understand it too. When I knew that I loved you, I knew—I believed, at least, that another suffering had been found for me, as though I had not enough already. Of course, I was hopeless. How could I tell, how could any one guess that you—you of all women—with your beauty, your youth, your splendid woman's heart—could ever care for me? Oh, my darling—dear, dearest—is there no other word? If I could only tell you half!"

      "If you could tell me all, you would only have told half, love," said Laura. "There is mine to tell, too—and it is not a little." She bent down to him and softly kissed the beautiful pale forehead.

      The bright flush came to Arden's cheek and died away again in the happy silence that followed. But he raised his head, and his two hands took one of hers and gently covered it.

      "You must always be the same to me," he said, almost under his breath. "You have given me this new life—do not take it from me again—the old would be impossible now, not to be lived."

      "It need never be lived, it never shall be, if I live myself," answered Laura. "If only I could make you sure of that, I should be really happy. But you do not really doubt it, Herbert, do you?"

      "No, dear, to doubt you would be to doubt everything—though it is hard to believe that it can all be so good, and last."

      "It does not seem hard to me. Perhaps a woman believes everything more easily than a man does. She needs to believe more, I suppose, and so she finds it easy."

      "No woman ever needed to believe as much as I," answered Arden, thoughtfully. He still held her hand, and passed one of his own lightly over it, just pressing it now and then, as though to make sure that it was real. "Except yourself, dear one," he added a moment later, with a sharp, short breath, as though something hurt him.

      Laura was quick to understand him, and to feel all that he felt. She heard the little sigh and looked into his face and saw the expression of something like pain there. She laid her free hand upon his shoulder and gazed into his soft brown eyes.

      "Herbert dear," she said, "I know what you are thinking about. I was put into the world to make you forget those things, and, God willing, I will. You shall forget them as completely as I do, or if you remember them they shall be dear to you, in a way, as they are to me."

      A wonderful look of loving gratitude was in his face, and he pressed her fingers closely in his.

      "Tell me one thing, Laura—only this once and I will not speak of it again. When you touch me—when you lay your hand on my shoulder—when you kiss my forehead—tell me quite truly, dear, do you not feel anything like—like a sort of horror, a kind of repulsion, as if you were touching something—well—unpleasant to touch?"

      Poor Arden really did not know how much he was loved. Laura's deep eyes opened wide for an instant, as he spoke, then almost closed again, and her lips quivered. Then suddenly without warning the bright tears welled up and overflowed. She hid her face in her hands and sobbed bitterly.

      "Oh, Herbert," she cried, "that you should think it of me, when I love you as though my heart would break!"

      With a movement that would have cost him a painful effort at any other time, Arden rose and clasped her to him and tried to soothe her, caressing her thick black hair, and kissing her forehead tenderly, with a sort of passionate reverence that was his own, and speaking such words as came to his lips in the deep emotion of the moment.

      "Forgive me, darling, how could I hurt you? Laura—sweetheart Laura—beloved—do not cry—I know it now—I shall never think of it again. No, dear, no—there, say you have forgiven me!"

      "Forgiven you, dear—what is there to forgive?" She looked up with streaming eyes.

      "Everything, love—those tears of yours, first of all—"

      She dried her eyes and made him sit down again before she spoke, looking out of the window at the flowers.

      "It is not your fault," she said at last. "I have not shown you how I love yet—that is all. But I will, soon."

      "You have shown it already, dear—far more than you know."

      The world might have been surprised could it have seen the two together—the tipsy cripple, as it called Arden, and the girl who loved Francesco Savelli, as it unhesitatingly denominated Laura. It would have been a little surprised at first, and then, on mature reflection, it would have said that it was all a comedy, and that both acted it very well. Was it not natural that Arden should want a pretty wife and that Laura should take any husband that presented himself, since she could get no better? And in that case why should not each act a comedy to gain the other's hand? The world did that sort of thing every day, and what the world did Arden and Laura could very well afford to do; and after all, it was not of the slightest importance, since they were both going away, so why should one talk about them? The answer to that last question is so very hard to find that it may be left to those who put it. Donna Adele seemed satisfied, and that was the principal consideration for the present.

      "My poor sister!" she exclaimed to Ghisleri one day.

      "Step-sister," observed Pietro, correcting her.

      "Oh, we were always quite like real sisters," answered Adele. "Of course, my dear Ghisleri, I know what a splendid man Lord Herbert is, in everything but his unfortunate deformity. Any one can see that in his face, and besides, you would not have chosen him for your friend if he were not immensely superior to other men."

      Ghisleri puffed at his cigarette, looked at her, laughed, and puffed again.

      "But that one thing," continued Adele, "I cannot understand how she can overlook it, can you? I assure you if my father had told me to marry Lord Herbert, I should have done something quite desperate. I think I should almost have refused. I would almost rather have had to marry you."

      "Really?" Pietro showed some amusement. "Do you think you could have loved me in the end?" he inquired as though he were asking for information of the most commonplace kind.

      "Loved

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