and somewhat shaken. You wish
me to keep our engagement secret?"

She thought for a moment, then answered musingly:

"For the present perhaps it would be best. Though," and she laughed,
"it would be delightful to see all the other women jealous and envious
of my good fortune! Still, if the news were told to any of our
friends--who knows?--it might accidentally reach Guido, and--"

"I understand! You may rely upon my discretion. Good-night, contessa!"

"You may call me Nina," she murmured, softly.

"NINA, then," I said, with some effort, as I lightly kissed her.
"Good-night!--may your dreams be of me!" She responded to this with a
gratified smile, and as I left the room she waved her hand in a parting
salute. My diamonds flashed on it like a small circlet of fire; the
light shed through the rose-colored lamps that hung from the painted
ceiling fell full on her exquisite loveliness, softening it into
ethereal radiance and delicacy, and when I strode forth from the house
into the night air heavy with the threatening gloom of coming tempest,
the picture of that fair face and form flitted before me like a
mirage--the glitter of her hair flashed on my vision like little snakes
of fire--her lithe hands seemed to beckon me--her lips had left a
scorching heat on mine. Distracted with the thoughts that tortured me,
I walked on and on for hours. The storm broke at last; the rain poured
in torrents, but heedless of wind and weather, I wandered on like a
forsaken fugitive. I seemed to be the only human being left alive in a
world of wrath and darkness. The rush and roar of the blast, the angry
noise of waves breaking hurriedly on the shore, the swirling showers
that fell on my defenseless head--all these things were unfelt, unheard
by me. There are times in a man's life when mere physical feeling grows
numb under the pressure of intense mental agony-when the indignant
soul, smarting with the experience of some vile injustice, forgets for
a little its narrow and poor house of clay. Some such mood was upon me
then, I suppose, for in the very act of walking I was almost
unconscious of movement. An awful solitude seemed to encompass me--a
silence of my own creating. I fancied that even the angry elements
avoided me as I passed; that there was nothing, nothing in all the wide
universe but myself and a dark brooding horror called Vengeance. All
suddenly, the mists of my mind cleared; I moved no longer in a deaf,
blind stupor. A flas