ly. "There was a time I had
not to press a wish,--I had but to utter it."

"And yet, Alice," said he, leaning over, and whispering so close that
she felt his breath on her face,--"and yet I never loved you then as I
love you now."

"You have determined that I should not repeat my invitation," said she,
leaning back in the carriage; "I must--I have no help for it--I must say
good-bye!"

"Good-bye," said he, pressing her hand, from which he had just drawn off
the glove, to his lips. She never made any effort to withdraw it, but
leaned forward as though to conceal the action from her companion.

"Good-bye, dearest Alice," said he, once more.

"Give me my glove, Tony. I think it has fallen," said she, carelessly,
as she leaned back once more.

"There it is," muttered he; "but I have another here that I will never
part with;" and he drew forth the glove she had thrown on the strand for
him to pick up--so long ago!

"You will see papa, Tony?" said she, drawing down her veil; "you can't
fail to meet him before night. Say you saw us. Good-bye."

And Tony stood alone on the mountain, and watched the cloud of dust that
rose behind the carriage, and listened to the heavy tramp of the horses
till the sounds died off in the distance.

"Oh if I could trust the whisper at my heart!" cried he. "If I could--if
I could--I 'd be happier than I ever dared to hope for."

CHAPTER L. THE SOLDIER OF MISFORTUNE

The little flicker of hope--faint enough it was--that cheered up Tony's
heart, served also to indispose him to meet with Lady Lyle; for he
remembered, fresh as though it had been the day before, the sharp lesson
that lady had read him on the "absurd pretensions of certain young
gentlemen with respect to those immeasurably above them in station."
"I am not in a humor to listen to the second part of the homily, which
certainly would not be the less pointed, seeing that I am a wayfarer on
foot, and with my knapsack strapped behind me." It gave him no sense
of shame that Alice should have seen him thus poor and humble. He never
blushed for his pack or his hobnailed shoes. If _she_ could not think of
him apart from the accidents of his condition, it mattered very little
what he wore or how he journeyed. And as he cheered himself with these
thoughts he gained a high peak, from which he could see the pine-clad
promontory of Sestri, some thousand feet down below him. He knew the
spot from description, and remembered that it was