lved to save my honor when it was compromised. My
heart is de Maulear's, and I give him my hand."

The Marquis fell at Aminta's feet.

"To you," she continued, "Count Monte-Leone, I can offer only my respect
and esteem."

"Signorina," said Monte-Leone, with a voice full of dignity and despair,
"I accept even the boon you offer me; and henceforth he whom you love is
sacred to me."

By a violent effort over himself he extended his hand to Maulear. The
waves had borne the bark towards the shore, and all who had participated
in this scene returned safely to the villa. Signora Rovero, who did not
know what had passed, on the next day received a letter from
Monte-Leone, who, during the night, had left the villa.

VI.--MARRIAGE.

Nothing can describe the intensity of Count Monte-Leone's grief when he
was again in the carriage, which, on the evening before, had borne him
to happiness, and now took him back to Naples, sad and despairing. The
Count had overcome his own nature, and this was a great victory to one
who usually yielded to every prompting of passion. On this occasion he
had restrained himself and overcome his rage at his rival's triumph. He
overcame his agony at the wreck of his hopes. When he left Sorrento, and
awoke, so to say, from the stupefaction into which he had plunged, the
excitable brain and fiery heart again re-opened.

"I was a fool," said he, "I was a fool when I yielded my happiness to
another. I was yet more mad when I swore to respect his life, when
something far more violent than mine is wrested from me. Has he not
crushed and tortured my heart? I regret even my place of imprisonment,"
continued he. "There I had dreams of love; and had death reached me in
that abyss, I should have borne away hopes of the future which now are
crushed for ever."

Two torrents of tears rolled down the cheeks of this iron-hearted man,
over which they had rarely flown before.

On the morning after Monte-Leone's return to his hotel, he might have
been observed sitting before the portrait of the victim of Carlo III.,
the holy martyr of conscience, as he called his father, looking on his
noble brow with the most tender respect. We have spoken of the almost
superstitious faith of the Count in the fact that his father protected
him in all the events of his life. We have heard him call on his father
when about to be buried in the waves of the sea, and then become
resigned to death in the pious faith that his father