id I
loved you. I never deceived you in that. I said I would be your wife. So
I will, faithfully. I haven't so much heart as you think; and yet, too,
I have a great deal more. I am incapable of more than one
deception.--Mercy! didn't you see it? didn't you know it? see that I saw
it? know that I knew it? It was diamond cut diamond. You deceived me; I
deceived you. Now that your deception ceases, mine ceases. _Now_ we are
free, with our hundred thousand a year! Excuse me, but it sometimes
comes across me! _Now_ we can be good and honest and true. It was all a
make-believe virtue before."

"So you read that thing?" I asked: actually--strange as it may seem--for
something to say.

"Yes, while you were ill. It was lying with your pen in it, on the
table. I read it because I suspected. Otherwise I shouldn't have done
so."

"It was the act of a false woman," said I.

"A false woman? No,--simply of a woman. I am a woman, Sir." And she
began to smile. "Come, _you_ be a man!"

RIVIERA DI PONENTE.

1.

On this lovely Western Shore, where no tempests rage and roar,
Over olive-bearing mountains, by the deep and violet sea,
There, through each long happy day, winding slowly on our way,
Travellers from across the ocean, toward Italia journeyed we,--
Each long day, that, richer, fairer,
Showed the charming Riviera.

2.

There black war-ships doze at anchor, in the Bay of Villa-Franca;
Eagle-like, gray Esa, clinging to its rocky perch, looks down;
And upon the mountain dim, ruined, shattered, stern, and grim,
Turbia sees us through the ages with its austere Roman frown,--
While we climb, where cooler, rarer
Breezes sweep the Riviera.

3.

Down the hillside steep and stony, through the old streets of Mentone,
Quiet, half-forgotten city of a drowsy prince and time,
Through the mild Italian midnight, rolls upon the wave the moonlight,
Murmuring in our dreams the cadence of a strange Ligurian rhyme,--
Rhymes in which each heart is sharer,
Journeying on the Riviera.

4.

When the morning air comes purer, creeping up in our vettura,
Eastward gleams a rosy tumult with the rising of the day;
Toward the north, with gradual changes, steal along the mountain-ranges
Tender tints of warmer feel