ood? How could he tell her what
he suspected to be true--that in that quiet little Italian town English
detectives were watching his every movement, and that at any moment he
might be arrested? With her joyless life, and with this new misery
closing around her, would it not be well for her to die?

"It is farewell between us now, Bernard, then?" she said softly. "God
grant that you may be going back to a new and happier life. May I, who
have failed so utterly, give you just one word of advice?"

He bowed his head, for just then he could not have spoken. She raised
herself a little upon her couch, and felt for his hand.

"Bernard, you are not as your father was," she said; "yet you, too, have
something of the student in you. Don't think that I am going to say
anything against learning and culture. It is a grand thing for a man to
devote himself to; but, like everything else, in excess it has its
dangers. Sometimes it makes a man gloomy and reserved, and averse to all
change and society, and intolerant toward others. Bernard, it is bad for
his wife then. A woman sets so much store by little things--her
happiness is bound up in them. She is very, very human, and she wants to
be loved, and considered, and feel herself a great part in her husband's
life and thoughts. And if it is all denied to her, what is she to do? Of
necessity she must be miserable. A man should never let his wife feel
that she is shut out from any one of his great interests. He should
never let those little mutual ties which once held them together grow
weak, and fancy because he is living amongst the ghosts of great
thoughts that little human responsibilities have no claim upon him.
Bernard, you will remember all this!"

"Every word, mother," he answered. "Helen would thank you if she had
been here."

A horn sounded from outside, and he drew out his watch hastily.

"The diligence, mother!" he exclaimed; "I must go."

He took her frail form up into his arms, and kissed her.

"If all goes well," he said in a low tone, "I will bring her to you."

"If she will come, I shall die happy," she murmured. "But not against
her will or without knowing all. Farewell!"

That night three men were racing home to England as fast as express
train and steamer could bear them. One was Bernard Maddison, another Mr.
Benjamin Levy, and the third his artist friend.

CHAPTER XXXIII

VISITORS FOR MR. BERNARD MADDISON

In an ordinary case, with three men st