y, after
what I had brought her to. She brought me to reason. May Heaven preserve
men from needing such lessons! She reproached me--ay, she did reproach
me. I thank my good genius, or whatever it is that looks after us, that
I could set my teeth and not answer her a syllable."

"The minx!" said the countess aside to me. "I would have shaken her!"

"'What was she to do without a groschen?' she concluded, and I could
only say that I had had thoughts of dropping my military career and
taking to music in good earnest. I had never been able to neglect it,
even in any worst time, for it was a passion with me. She said:

"'A composer--a beggar!' That was hard.

"I asked her, 'Will you not help me?'

"'Never, to degrade yourself in that manner,' she assured me.

"Considering that I had deserved my punishment, I left her. I sat up
all night, I remember, thinking over what I had brought her to, and
wondering what I could do for her. I wondered if you, Bruno, would help
her and let me go away and work out my punishment, for, believe me, I
never thought of shirking it. I had been most effectually brought to
reason, and your example, and yours, Hildegarde, had taught me a
different kind of moral fiber to that.

"I brought your note about the check to Vittoria, and asked her if she
knew anything about it. She looked at me, and in that instant I knew the
truth. She did not once attempt to deny it. I do not know what, in my
horrible despair and shame, I may have said or done.

"I was brought to my senses by seeing her cowering before me, with her
hands before her face, and begging me not to kill her. I felt what a
brute I must have been, but that kind of brutality has been knocked out
of me long ago. I raised her, and asked her to forgive me, and bade her
keep silence and see no one, and I would see that she did not suffer for
it.

"Everything seemed to stand clearly before me. If I had kept straight,
the poor ignorant thing would never have been tempted to such a thing. I
settled my whole course in half an hour, and have never departed from it
since.

"I wrote that letter to you, and went and read it to my wife. I told
her that I could never forgive myself for having caused her such
unhappiness, and that I was going to release her from me. I only dropped
a vague hint about the boy at first; I was stooping over his crib to say
good-bye to him. She said, 'What am I to do with him?' I caught at the
idea, and she easily let me