nd her husband; and I deemed the doctor's anger to be
the fruit of a base and unworthy mind.

I read, curiously enthralled--though whether by the beauty of the lines
or the beauty of the woman there beside me I could not then have told
you.

Presently she checked me. "Leave now Panormitano," she said. "Here is
something else upon which you shall give me your judgment." And she set
before me a sheet upon which there was a sonnet writ in her own hand,
which was as beautiful as any copyist's that I have ever seen.

I read the poem. It was the tenderest and saddest little cry from a
heart that ached and starved for an ideal love; and good as the manner
seemed, the matter itself it was that chiefly moved me. At my admission
of its moving quality her white hand closed over mine as it had done
that day in the library when we had read of "Isabetta and the Pot of
Basil." Her hand was warm, but not warm enough to burn me as it did.

"Ah, thanks, Agostino," she murmured. "Your praise is sweet to me. The
verses are my own."

I was dumbfounded at this fresh and more intimate glimpse of her. The
beauty of her body was there for all to see and worship; but here was my
first glimpse of the rare beauties of her mind. In what words I should
have answered her I do not know, for at that moment we suffered an
interruption.

Sudden and harsh as the crackling of a twig came from behind us the
voice of Messer Fifanti. "What do you read?"

We started apart, and turned.

Either he, of set purpose, had crept up behind us so softly that we
should not suspect his approach, or else so engrossed were we that our
ears had been deafened for the time. He stood there now in his untidy
gown of black, and there was a leer of mockery on his long, white face.
Slowly he put a lean arm between us, and took the sheet in his bony
claw.

He peered at it very closely, being without glasses, and screwed his
eyes up until they all but disappeared.

Thus he stood, and slowly read, whilst I looked on a trifle uneasy, and
Giuliana's face wore an odd look of fear, her bosom heaving unsteadily
in its russet sheath.

He sniffed contemptuously when he had read, and looked at me.

"Have I not bidden you leave the vulgarities of dialect to the vulgar?"
quoth he. "Is there not enough written for you in Latin, that you
must be wasting your time and perverting your senses with such poor
illiterate gibberish as this? And what is it that you have there?" He
took t