any moment. Are you strong enough, my darling, to come with me?
Come!"

"Yes, yes, I'm strong enough. Give me some more water, and kiss me,
dear."

The lovers wrapped themselves in each other's arms. But hearing some
one moving in the adjoining room, the girl looked in horror and
supplication in Mike's eyes. Stooping, he disappeared beneath a small
table; and drew his legs beneath the cloth. The sounds in the next
room continued, and he recognized them as proceeding from some one
searching for clothes. Then Lily's door was opened and Mrs. Young
said--

"Lily, there is some one in your room; I'm sure Mr. Fletcher is
here."

"Oh, mother, how can you say such a thing! indeed he is not."

"He is; I am not mistaken. This is disgraceful; he must be under that
bed."

"Mother, you can look."

"I shall do nothing of the kind. I shall fetch your uncle."

When he heard Mrs. Young retreating with fast steps, Mike emerged
from his hiding.

"What shall I do?"

"You can't leave without being seen. Uncle sleeps opposite."

"I'll hide in your mother's room; and while they are looking for me
here, I will slip out."

"How clever you are, darling! Go there. Do you hear? uncle is
answering her. To-morrow we shall find an opportunity to get away;
but now I would not be found out.... I told mother you weren't here.
Go!"

The morrow brought no opportunity for flight. Lily could not leave
her room, and it was whispered that the doctors despaired of her
life. Then Mike opened his heart to the Major, and the old soldier
promised him his cordial support when Lily was well. Three days
passed, and then, unable to bear the strain any longer, Mike fled to
Monte Carlo. There he lost and won a fortune. Hence Italy enticed
him, and he went, knowing that he should never go there with Lily.

But not in art nor in dissipation did he find escape from her
deciduous beauty, now divided from the grave only by a breath,
beautiful and divinely sorrowful in its transit.

Some days passed, and then a letter from the Major brought him back
over-worn with anxiety, wild with grief. He found her better. She had
been carried down from her room, and was lying on a sofa by the open
window. There were a few flowers in her hands, and when she offered
them to Mike she said with a kind of Heine-like humour--

"Take them, they will live almost as long as I shall."

"Lily, you will get well, and we shall see Italy together. I had to
leave you--I shoul