the schoolroom she heard voices, and peeped in. There was her little Nancy, pen in hand, wild-eyed and happy, and Edith bending over her, reading half-aloud what the inspired child-poet had just written.
"I am going into the fields with Nino," said Valeria. "Edith dear, won't you come, too?"
"Oh no! It is too windy," said her sister-in-law. "The wind takes my breath away and makes me cough. Besides, Nancy could not spare me."
"No!" said Nancy, laying her pink cheek against Edith's arm and smiling, "I could not spare her!"
Valeria laughed, and blew a kiss to them both. Then she ran upstairs for her hat, and went out across the fields with Nino.
Adjoining the schoolroom was the drawing-room where Mrs. Avory and the grandfather were sitting together in silence. "Sally's cough is worse," said the grandfather suddenly.
(The Fates were spinning. "Here is a black thread," said One. "Weave it in," said the Other. And the Third sharpened her scissors.)
"Sally's cough is worse," said the grandfather again.
Mrs. Avory looked up from her crocheting. "Hush, father dear!" she said.
"I said Sally's cough is worse," repeated the old man. "I hear it every night."
"No, dear; no, dear," said Mrs. Avory. "Not poor Sally. Sally has been at rest many years. Perhaps you mean Edith. She has a little cold."
"I know Sally's cough," said the old man.
Mrs. Avory put her work down and folded her hands. A slow, icy shiver crept over her and enveloped her like a wet sheet.
"Sally is my favourite grandchild," continued her father, shaking his white head. "Poor little Sally—poor little Sally!"
Mrs. Avory sat still. Terror, heavy and cold, crawled like a snake into her heart. "Edith! It is Edith!" she said.
"It is Sally!" cried the old man, rising to his feet. "I remember Sally's cough, and in the night I hear it."
There was a moment's silence. Then in the schoolroom Edith coughed. The grandfather came close to his daughter. "There," he whispered, "that is Sally. And you told me she was dead."
Mrs. Avory rose tremblingly to her feet. In her eyes was the vision of her tragic children, all torn to death by the shuddering and insidious Ill that crouched in their breasts and clutched at their throats, and sprang upon them and strangled them when they reached the threshold of their youth. And now Edith, too? Edith, her last-born!
She raised her eyes of Madre Dolorosa to her father's face. Then she fell fainting before him, her grey head at his feet.
Out in the fields, that were alight with daisies, Nino took Valeria's hand and drew her arm through his. "Little cousin," he said, "do you remember how I loved you when you were twelve years old, and scorned me?"
"Yes," laughed Valeria; "and how I loved you when you were sixteen, and had forgotten me."
"But, again," said Nino, "how I loved you when you were eighteen, and refused me."
Valeria looked at him with timorous eyes. "And now I am twenty-seven and a half, and you are only twenty-three."
"True," said Nino. "How young you are! The woman I love is thirty-eight years old."
Valeria's face paled; then it flushed rose-pink, and she laughed. "Thirty-eight! Nearly forty? I don't believe it!" All her pretty teeth shone, and the dimple dipped in her cheek.
"I hardly believe it myself," said Nino, laughing.
"Perhaps it is not true, after all."
Did Zio Giacomo in the library hear with his astral ear his son's gratifying assertion? Fräulein certainly thought that she saw him smile in his sleep, while through her careful lips "Conte Ukolino," in the thirty-third canto of the "Inferno," gnawed noisomely at the Archbishop's ravaged skull.
"Are you sure that she is not seventeen?" asked Valeria, biting a blade of grass, and glancing up sideways at her cousin's face.
Nino stopped. "'She?' Who? Why? Who is seventeen?" he asked.
"Edith," breathed Valeria.
Nino shook his head. "No, not Edith, poor little thing!" Then he bent forward and kissed Valeria decisively and authoritatively long before she expected it.
"Why did you call Edith a poor little thing?" asked Valeria, when she had forgiven him, and been kissed again.
Nino looked grave, and tapped his chest with his finger. "È tisica!" he said.
Valeria started back, and dragged her hands from his. "Tisica!" Her heart stopped beating, and then galloped off like a bolting horse. "Tisica!" In the terrible half-forgotten word the memory of Tom and the tragic past flamed up again. Yes; Edith had a cough. But everybody in England coughed. Edith—Edith, with her fair hair and pink cheeks! It was not true! It could not be true. Sweet, darling Edith, with the hideous North-German coiffure that she had made for Valeria's sake! Edith, little Nancy's best friend! Ah, Nancy! … Valeria's thought, like some maddened quarry, darted off in another direction. Nancy! Nancy! She was with Edith now! She was always with Edith, laughing, talking, bending over the same book, kissing her good-night and good-morning.
"I must go back," said Valeria suddenly, with a face grown pinched and small. Nino held her tight.
"What is it, love of mine?" he said.
"The baby!" gasped Valeria, with a sob. Nancy was the baby again. The baby that had to be taken away from danger—from Tom first, and now from Edith. It was the baby for whom she had run across these fields one morning years ago, tripping and stumbling in her haste, leaving what perhaps was love behind her, lest the baby should be hungry, lest the baby should cry. And now again she ran, tripping and stumbling in her haste, leaving what perhaps was love behind her. Nancy must be saved. What if it were too late! What if Nancy had already breathed the blight? If Nancy, too, were soon to begin to cough … to cough, and clear her throat, and perspire in the night, and have her temperature taken twice a day, and then one day—one day her eyes frightened, her fists clenched, and her mouth full of blood.... Valeria held her hands to her cheeks, crying aloud, as she tottered and ran across the flowering fields.
When she reached the garden there was Nancy, standing on the swing, alone—swinging and singing, with her curls all ablow.
"Fräulein came out and called Edith away," said the child, with a little pout. "She said I was not to come. Perhaps somebody has arrived. Could it be the poet from London?"
"Not yet, dear," said Valeria, voiceless, and with hammering heart. She embraced the little black legs standing on the swing, and laid her throbbing temple against the child's pinafore. "Ave Maria, Mater Dei, Ora pro nobis," she murmured.
"Go out of the way, mother dear, and see how high I swing," said Nancy. Valeria stepped aside; then she saw Fräulein's face appear at the drawing-room window and Fräulein's hand beckoning to her to come in.
"I must go indoors for a moment. Don't swing too high, darling," cried Valeria, and hurried into the house.
When she entered the drawing-room her heart stood still. Mrs. Avory was on the sofa, with grey lips and trembling hands. Fräulein stood by her, holding smelling-salts and a saucer of vinegar; while Edith, kneeling
