against her. Was it not natural for so beautiful a girl to have a lover?
But that this fellow--this foreigner--should degrade her by treating her
as if she were a nursery-maid flirting with one of the soldiers from the
barracks down there, this filled him with bitterness and hatred. He
turned and walked away with a firm step. He had no ill thoughts of her,
whatever message she might send him. At the worst, she had been generous
to him; she had filled his life with love and hope; she had given him a
future. If this dream were shattered, at least he could turn elsewhere,
and say, "Labor, be thou my good."

Meanwhile, of this stranger? He had indeed taken Natalie Lind's hand in
his, and Natalie let it remain there without hesitation.

"My little daughter," said he to her in Italian, "I could have
recognized you by your hands. You have the hands of your mother: no one
in the world had more beautiful hands than she had. And now I will tell
you about her, if you promise not to cry any more."

It was Calabressa who spoke.




CHAPTER XVII.

CALABRESSA.


When Calabressa called at the house in Curzon Street he was at once
admitted; Natalie recognizing the name as that of one of her father's