Italian street-life,
but the great space of the Maximilian-Joseph Platz, with the doves
pattering placidly over the white and black pattern of its pavement, and
the Maximiliansstrasse stretching before her with the open arches of the
Maximilianeum closing its long vista at the further end....

Quick steps in the hall broke in upon her day dream, and her cousin
re-entered, an open letter in his hand and his face curiously drawn. He
gave her one strange look and halted.

"What has happened?" she asked hastily and anxiously.

He went to the window and looked out, so that his back was turned
towards her and his face concealed from her view.

"I've just heard from Von Ibn," he said briefly.

"Is that letter from him?"

"No; he's not writing any letters these days."

"Oh--" she began, and then stopped.

He kept his back towards her, and then, after a short pause:

"He's going all to pieces," he said in a low tone, very slowly.

"Oh--" she exclaimed again, and again stopped.

"I reckon he's pretty badly off; he's got beyond himself. He's--well,
he's--. Rosina, the long and short of it is, he's gone crazy!"

She rose slowly out of her seat, her face deadly white, her finger-nails
turned cruelly into her palms.

"Jack!" she stammered; "Jack!"

He continued to look from the window.

"I knew he'd take it awfully hard," he said, in a voice that sounded
strained, "but I didn't think he'd give up so completely; he's--"

Then she screamed, reaching forth and touching his hand.

"You're not breaking it to me that he's dead! You're not telling me that
he's dead!"

He turned from the window at that, and was shocked at her face and the
way that her hands were twisting.

"I know he's dead!" she screamed again, and he sprang forward and caught
her in his arms as she sank down there at his knees.

"He is _not_ dead!" he told her forcefully; "honestly, he is _not_ dead!
But he's in a bad way, and with it all just as it is, I don't know what
to do about you. If you don't care, why, as I said before, it's not our
funeral; but if you do care, I--well, I--"

"Oh, Jack, can I go to him? I must go to him! Can't you take me to him?"

She writhed in his arms as if she also was become a maniac.

"Do you really want to go to him? Do you know what that means? It means
no more backing out, now or never."

"I know, I understand, I'm willing! Only hurry! only telegraph that I
will come! only--" she began to choke.

"I'll tell