olonged the agony of the hapless
household for a time. During these days of wretchedness Ginevra showed
the sublimity of her nature and the extent of her resignation.

Stoically she bore the strokes of misery; her strong soul held her up
against all woes; she worked with unfaltering hand beside her dying son,
performed her household duties with marvellous activity, and sufficed
for all. She was even happy, still, when she saw on Luigi's lips a smile
of surprise at the cleanliness she produced in the one poor room where
they had taken refuge.

"Dear, I kept this bit of bread for you," she said, one evening, when he
returned, worn-out.

"And you?"

"I? I have dined, dear Luigi; I want nothing more."

And the tender look on her beseeching face urged him more than her words
to take the food of which she had deprived herself.

Luigi kissed her, with one of those kisses of despair that were given
in 1793 between friends as they mounted the scaffold. In such supreme
moments two beings see each other, heart to heart. The hapless Luigi,
comprehending suddenly that his wife was starving, was seized with the
fever which consumed her. He shuddered, and went out, pretending that
some business called him; for he would rather have drunk the deadliest
poison than escape death by eating that last morsel of bread that was
left in his home.

He wandered wildly about Paris; amid the gorgeous equipages, in the
bosom of that flaunting luxury that displays itself everywhere;
he hurried past the windows of the money-changers where gold was
glittering; and at last he resolved to sell himself to be a substitute
for military service, hoping that this sacrifice would save Ginevra, and
that her father, during his absence, would take her home.

He went to one of those agents who manage these transactions, and felt a
sort of happiness in recognizing an old officer of the Imperial guard.

"It is two days since I have eaten anything," he said to him in a slow,
weak voice. "My wife is dying of hunger, and has never uttered one word
of complaint; she will die smiling, I think. For God's sake, comrade,"
he added, bitterly, "buy me in advance; I am robust; I am no longer in
the service, and I--"

The officer gave Luigi a sum on account of that which he promised to
procure for him. The wretched man laughed convulsively as he grasped the
gold, and ran with all his might, breathless, to his home, crying out at
times:--

"Ginevra! Oh, my Ginevra!