hing hard, and fixing her burning
eyes on the old engraving of Saint Ursula, asleep in a queer four-post
bedstead with her crown at her feet, that hung over the fireplace. But
instead of rising to stand beside her, Giovanni leaned back in his
chair, his hands crossed over one knee; and instead of looking up to
her face, he gazed steadily down at the hem of her long black skirt,
where it lay motionless across the wolf's skin that served for a
hearth-rug.

'What is it?' she asked, after a long pause, and rather unsteadily.

He understood that she was going back to the question she had asked
him at first, but still he did not answer. She kept her eyes steadily
on Saint Ursula while she spoke again.

'If it is not good-bye, what is it that is so hard to say?'

'I have had a long talk with my father.'

Angela moved a little and looked down at his bent head, for he spoke
in an almost despairing tone. She thought she understood him at last.

'He will not hear of our marriage, now that I am a beggar,' she said,
prompting him.

But Giovanni raised his face at once, and rather proudly.

'You are unjust to him,' he said. 'He is not changed. It is a very
different matter. He has had a great misfortune, and has lost almost
all he had, without much hope of recovering anything. We were very
well off, and I should have had a right to marry you, though you had
not a penny, if this had not happened. As it is, my father is left
with nothing but his General's pension to support my mother. My
brothers will both need help for years to come, for they are much
younger than I am, and I must live on my pay if I mean to stay in the
service.'

'Is that all?' Angela's voice trembled a little.

'Yes, my pay, and nothing more----'

'I did not mean that,' she hastened to say, interrupting him, and
there was a note of returning gladness in her voice. 'I meant to ask
if that was all the bad news.'

'It is enough, surely, since it half ruins our lives! What right have
I to ask you to keep your promise and marry me, since I have not
enough for us to live on?'

Angela turned quite towards him now and repeated his own words.

'And what right have I to ask you to keep your promise and marry me?
When you gave your word, you thought I had a great name and was heir
to a splendid fortune. You were deceived. I am a "destitute
foundling"--the lawyers have proved it, and the proof of their proofs
is that I am obliged to accept the charity of my ol