Italian; and as I had left my servant at a town at some distance, I
required her attention till I could write to him to come to me. I was
thankful for her cares, and amused by her Italian babble. We became very
good friends. She told me she had been servant to a lady of great rank,
who had died in Switzerland; and that, being enriched by the generosity
of her mistress, she had married a Swiss innkeeper, and his people had
become hers. My servant arrived, and my hostess learned my name, which
she did not know before. She came into my room greatly agitated. In
brief, this woman had been servant to your wife. She had accompanied
her to my villa, and known of her anxiety to see me, as your friend.
The Government had assigned to your wife your palace at Milan, with a
competent income. She had refused to accept of either. Failing to see
me, she had set off towards England, resolved upon seeing yourself; for
the journals had stated that to England you had escaped."

"She dared! shameless! And see, but a moment before, I had forgotten
all but her grave in a foreign soil,--and these tears had forgiven her,"
murmured the Italian.

"Let them forgive her still," said Harley, with all his exquisite
sweetness of look and tone. "I resume. On entering Switzerland your
wife's health, which you know was always delicate, gave way. To fatigue
and anxiety succeeded fever, and delirium ensued. She had taken with her
but this one female attendant--the sole one she could trust--on leaving
home. She suspected Peschiera to have bribed her household. In the
presence of this woman she raved of her innocence, in accents of terror
and aversion denounced your kinsman, and called on you to vindicate her
name and your own."

"Ravings indeed! Poor Paulina!" groaned Riccabocca, covering his face
with both hands.

"But in her delirium there were lucid intervals. In one of these she
rose, in spite of all her servants could do to restrain her, took from
her desk several letters, and reading them over, exclaimed piteously,
'But how to get them to him; whom to trust? And his friend is gone!'
Then an idea seemed suddenly to flash upon her, for she uttered a joyous
exclamation, sat down, and wrote long and rapidly, enclosed what she
wrote with all the letters, in one packet, which she sealed carefully,
and bade her servant carry to the post, with many injunctions to take
it with her own hand, and pay the charge on it. 'For oh!' said she (I
repeat the words