lady was despatched to her home under
charge of a servant.

Emilia feasted on the looking-glass when alone. Had Merthyr, in restoring
her to health, given her an overdose of the poison?

"Countess Branciani made the Austrian Governor her slave," she uttered,
planting one foot upon a stool to lend herself height. "He told her who
were suspected, and who would be imprisoned, and gave her all the State
secrets. Beauty can do more than music. I wonder whether Merthyr loved
her? He loves me!"

Emilia was smitten with a fear that he would speak of it when she next
saw him. "Oh! I hope he will be just the same as he has been," she
sighed; and with much melancholy shook her head at her fair reflection,
and began to undress. It had not struck her with surprise that two men
should be loving her, until, standing away from the purple folds, she
seemed to grow smaller and smaller, as a fire-log robbed of its flame,
and felt insufficient and weak. This was a new sensation. She depended no
more on her own vital sincerity. It was in her nature, doubtless, to
crave constantly for approval, but in the service of personal beauty
instead of divine Art, she found herself utterly unwound without it:
victim of a sense of most uncomfortable hollowness. She was glad to
extinguish the candle and be covered up dark in the circle of her warmth.
Then her young blood sang to her again.

An hour before breakfast every morning she read with Merthyr. Now, this
morning how was she to appear to him? There would be no reading, of
course. How could he think of teaching one to whom he trembled. Emilia
trusted that she might see no change in him, and, above all, that he
would not speak of his love for her. Nevertheless, she put on her robe of
conquest, having first rejected with distaste a plainer garb. She went
down the stairs slowly. Merthyr was in the library awaiting her. "You are
late," he said, eyeing the dress as a thing apart from her, and remarking
that it was hardly suited for morning wear. "Yellow, if you must have a
strong colour, and you wouldn't exhibit the schwartz-gelb of the Tedeschi
willingly. But now!"

This was the signal for the reading to commence.

"Wilfrid would not have been so cold to me," thought Emilia, turning the
leaves of Ariosto as a book of ashes. Not a word of love appeared to be
in his mind. This she did not regret; but she thirsted for the assuring
look. His eyes were quietly friendly. So friendly was he, that he bla