with fixed and dreamy eyes that
saw not the page; and as Lord Mallow came very near, with steps that
made no sound on the fallen pine-needles, he saw that there were tears
upon her drooping eyelids.

There are moments in every man's life when impulse is stronger than
discretion. Lord Mallow gave the reins to impulse now, and seated
himself by Lady Mabel's side, and took her hand in his, with an air of
sympathy so real that the lady forgot to be offended.

"Forgive me for having surprised your tears," he murmured gently.

"I am very foolish," she said, blushing deeply as she became aware of
the hand clasping hers, and suddenly withdrawing her own; "but there
are passages of Dante that are too pathetic."

"Oh, it was Dante!" exclaimed Lord Mallow, with a disappointed air.

He looked down at the page on her lap.

"Yes, naturally."

She had been reading about Paolo and Francesca--that one episode, in
all the catalogue of sin and sorrow, which melts every heart; a page at
which the volume seems to open of its own accord.

Lord Mallow leaned down and read the lines in a low voice, slowly, with
considerable feeling; and then he looked softly up at Mabel Ashbourne,
and at the landscape lying below them, in all the glow and glory of the
summer light, and looked back to the lady, with his hand still on the
book.

The strangeness of the situation: they two alone in the garden, unseen,
unheard by human eye or ear; the open book between them--a subtle bond
of union--hinting at forbidden passion.

"They were deeply to be pitied," said Lord Mallow, meaning the guilty
lovers.

"It was very sad," murmured Lady Mabel.

"But they were neither the first nor the last who have found out too
late that they were created to be happy in each other's love, and had
by an accident missed that supreme chance of happiness," said Lord
Mallow, with veiled intention.

Mabel sighed, and took the book from the gentleman's hand, and drew a
little farther off on the bench. She was not the kind of young woman to
yield tremblingly to the first whisper of an unauthorised love. It was
all very well to admire Francesca, upon strictly aesthetic grounds, as
the perfection of erring womanhood, beautiful even in her guilt.
Francesca had lived so long ago--in days so entirely mediaeval, that
one could afford to regard her with indulgent pity. But it was not to
be supposed that a modern duke's daughter was going to follow that
unfortunate young woman