'go and take some repose;
you have need of it.'

'Countess,' replied Sophia, then wept anew. 'Shame, shame and
desperation! Oh, wretch that I am! Oh, my poor heart!'

'Go, go to bed, Sophia; to-morrow we will talk. Here is the light.'
Saying this, she reached her the lamp with one hand and led her by
the other, using a little affectionate violence to conduct her out of
the room, and prevent her from speaking another word.

The next day Sophia was so overwhelmed with grief and shame, that she
took to her bed, struck down by a violent fever, which was the
commencement of a dangerous illness. The countess was her nurse.

Edoardo, having lost the source whence he derived all his supplies,
through the illness of Sophia, could no longer prevent his father
from coming to the knowledge of his irregularities. He was
immediately recalled to Venice, and shut up in a house of correction.
Disgraced in the eyes of the companions of his debaucheries, and
forced in his solitary confinement to make painful reflections on the
consequences of his conduct, he seemed to be cured of his fatal
passion, and when released, he returned no more to Padua; but, giving
up the study of the law, he devoted himself to commerce, to which the
contagious mania of making money, of becoming rich, made him steadily
apply himself. His old inclination had changed its name; it was
'mercantile speculation;' but the substance remained the same. He had
written to Sophia that his father would not consent to his marriage,
unless it were with a lady of large fortune: unfortunately, she was
not rich enough; however, that he would wed none but her, and that
they must be resigned, and trust to time; and Sophia, living on the
few letters that Edoardo continued to write her, and grieving that
she was not as rich as Valperghi would have wished, waited and hoped.
Her illness had been long and dangerous; her youth, and the care
bestowed on her, had alone been able to save her life. She had long
been oppressed by remorse: it was long ere she dared to lift her eyes
to the countess, or address one word to her.

The latter had sought to evade every allusion to the past; and the
poor girl, beginning to overcome her fears, ended at length in making
her her friend, her confidante. She told her everything, and was
fully forgiven everything.

After a time, Sophia recovered. They had lived together for four
years, during which Sophia had opened her whole heart to that lady,
ma