"But to-day we are here." Emilia pressed a hand to her bosom: "my heart
feels hollow, and my friends cry out in it. I cannot let him suffer." She
looked into Georgiana's eyes. "Will you not help them?--they want money."

The lady reddened. "Is it not preposterous to suppose that I can offer
them assistance of such a kind?"

"Not you," returned Emilia, sighing; and in an under-breath, "me--will
you lend it to me? Merthyr would. I shall repay it. I cannot tell what
fills me with this delight, but I know I am able to repay any sum. Two
thousand pounds would help them. I think--I think my voice has come
back."

"Have you tried it?" said Georgiana, to produce a diversion from the
other topic.

"No; but believe me when I tell you, it must be. I scarcely feel the
floor; no misery touches me. I am only sorry for my friends, not down on
the ground with them. Believe me! And I have been studying all this
while. I have not lost an hour. I would accept a part, and step on the
boards within a week, and be certain to succeed. I am just as willing to
go to the Conservatorio and submit to discipline. Only, dear friend,
believe me, that I ask for money now, because I am sure I can repay it. I
want to send it immediately, and then, good-bye to England."

Georgiana closed her desk. She had been suspicious at first of another
sentiment in the background, but was now quite convinced of the
simplicity of Emilia's design. She said: "I will tell you exactly how I
am placed. I do not know, that under any circumstances, I could have
given into your hands so large a sum as this that you ask for. My brother
has a fortune; and I have also a little property. When I say my brother
has a fortune, he has the remains of one. All that has gone has been
devoted to relieve your countrymen, and further the interests he has
nearest at heart. What is left to him, I believe, he has now thrown into
the gulf. You have heard Lady Charlotte call him a fanatic."

Emilia's lip quivered.

"You must not blame her for that," Georgiana continued. "Lady Gosstre
thinks much the same. The world thinks with them. I love him, and prove
my love by trusting him, and wish to prove my love by aiding him, and
being always at hand to succour, as I should be now, but that I obeyed
his dearest wish in resting here to watch over you. I am his other self.
I have taught him to feel that; so that in his devotion to this cause he
may follow every impulse he has, and still there