ricks of her
trade, by which she had beguiled his soul and ruined his honor?

"I am glad you are satisfied with my action in that affair," I said,
coldly and steadily. "I myself regret the death of the unfortunate
young man, and shall continue to do so. My nature, unhappily, is an
oversensitive one, and is apt to be affected by trifles. But now, mia
bella, farewell until to-morrow--happy to-morrow!--when I shall call
you mine indeed!"

A warm flush tinted her cheeks; she came to me where I stood, and
leaned against me.

"Shall I not see you again till we meet in the church?" she inquired,
with a becoming bashfulness.

"No. I will leave you this last day of your brief widowhood alone. It
is not well that I should obtrude myself upon your thoughts or prayers.
Stay!" and I caught her hand which toyed with the flower in my
buttonhole. "I see you still wear your former wedding-ring. May I take
it off?"

"Certainly." And she smiled while I deftly drew off the plain gold
circlet I had placed there nearly four years since.

"Will you let me keep it?"

"If you like. _I_ would rather not see it again."

"You shall not," I answered, as I slipped it into my pocket. "It will
be replaced by a new one to-morrow--one that I hope may be the symbol
of more joy to you than this has been."

And as her eyes turned to my face in all their melting, perfidious
languor, I conquered my hatred of her by a strong effort, and stooped
and kissed her. Had I yielded to my real impulses, I would have crushed
her cruelly in my arms, and bruised her delicate flesh with the brutal
ferocity of caresses born of bitterest loathing, not love. But no sign
of my aversion escaped me--all she saw was her elderly looking admirer,
with his calmly courteous demeanor, chill smile, and almost parental
tenderness; and she judged him merely as an influential gentleman of
good position and unlimited income, who was about to make her one of
the most envied women in all Italy.

The fugitive resemblance she traced in me to her "dead" husband was
certainly attributed by her to a purely accidental likeness common to
many persons in this world, where every man, they say, has his double,
and for that matter every woman also. Who does not remember the
touching surprise of Heinrich Heine when, on visiting the
picture-gallery of the Palazzo Durazzo in Genoa, he was brought face to
face with the portrait, as he thought, of a dead woman he had
loved--"Maria la morte."