not solid enough to
bear it. Cobwebbed cracks zigzagged the walls, and similar webs clouded
the window-panes. A sickly-sweet smell pervaded the aisles. After
walking about with him a little while in embarrassing silences, divided
only by his cursory explanations of the monuments and other objects, and
almost fearing he might produce a marriage licence, I went to a door in
the south transept which opened into the sacristy.

I glanced through it, towards the small altar at the upper end. The
place was empty save of one figure; and she was kneeling here in front of
the beautiful altarpiece by Bellini. Beautiful though it was she seemed
not to see it. She was weeping and praying as though her heart was
broken. She was my sister Caroline. I beckoned to Charles, and he came
to my side, and looked through the door with me.

'Speak to her,' said I. 'She will forgive you.'

I gently pushed him through the doorway, and went back into the transept,
down the nave, and onward to the west door. There I saw my father, to
whom I spoke. He answered severely that, having first obtained
comfortable quarters in a pension on the Grand Canal, he had gone back to
the hotel on the Riva degli Schiavoni to find me; but that I was not
there. He was now waiting for Caroline, to accompany her back to the
pension, at which she had requested to be left to herself as much as
possible till she could regain some composure.

I told him that it was useless to dwell on what was past, that I no doubt
had erred, that the remedy lay in the future and their marriage. In this
he quite agreed with me, and on my informing him that M. de la Feste was
at that moment with Caroline in the sacristy, he assented to my proposal
that we should leave them to themselves, and return together to await
them at the pension, where he had also engaged a room for me. This we
did, and going up to the chamber he had chosen for me, which overlooked
the Canal, I leant from the window to watch for the gondola that should
contain Charles and my sister.

They were not long in coming. I recognized them by the colour of her
sunshade as soon as they turned the bend on my right hand. They were
side by side of necessity, but there was no conversation between them,
and I thought that she looked flushed and he pale. When they were rowed
in to the steps of our house he handed her up. I fancied she might have
refused his assistance, but she did not. Soon I heard her pass m