ed
away hurriedly and plunged into conversation with a young soldier
standing by. Presently he heard Miss Winwood's voice.

"Mr. Savelli, I want to introduce you to Lady Chudley."

The fear gripped him harder and colder. How could he explain that he
was occupying his rightful place in that drawing-room? But he held
himself up and resolved to face the peril like a man. Lady Chudley
smiled on him graciously--how well he remembered her smile!--and made
him sit by her side. She was a dark, stately woman of forty, giving the
impression that she could look confoundedly cold and majestic when she
chose. She wore diamonds in her hair and a broad diamond clasp to the
black velvet round her throat.

"Miss Winwood has been telling me what an awful time you've had, Mr.
Savelli," she said pleasantly. "Now, whenever I hear of people having
had pneumonia I always want to talk to them and sympathize with them."

"That's very kind of you, Lady Chudley," said Paul.

"Only a fellow-feeling. I nearly died of it once myself. I hope you're
getting strong."

"I'm feeling my strength returning every day. It's a queer new joy."

"Isn't it?"

They discussed the exhilaration of convalescence. It was a 'wonderful
springtide. They reverted to the preceding misery.

"You're far luckier than I was," she remarked. "You've had a comfy
English house to be ill in. I was in a stone-cold palazzo in
Florence--in winter. Ugh! Shall I ever forget it? I don't want to speak
evil of Italy to an Italian--"

"I'm only Italian by descent," exclaimed Paul, with a laugh, his first
frank laugh during the whole of that gloomy evening. And he laughed
louder than was necessary, for, as it suddenly dawned upon him that he
did not in the least recall to her mind the grimy little Bludston boy,
the cold hand of fear was dissolved in a warm gush of exultation. "You
can abuse Italy or any country but England as much as you like."

"Why mustn't I abuse England?"

"Because it's the noblest country in the world," he cried; and, seeing
approval in her eyes, he yielded to an odd temptation. "If one could
only do something great for her!"

"What would you like to do?" she asked.

"Anything. Sing for her. Work for her. Die for her. It makes one so
impatient to sit down and do nothing. If one could only stir her up to
a sense of her nationality!" he went on, less lyrically, though with
the same fine enthusiasm. "She seems to be losing it, letting the
smaller nations