would actually respect her more and do her less injury than if she went
into it alone. "I charge myself with your future, Virginia," I said, "as
if you were my sister. I am young and able; I shall provide for you,
never fear, until you are honourably and happily married. And you shall
accept this service from me--the only one I can do you--upon my own
terms; and respect the bargain that you make with me more than you have
your father's."

She would not look at me, and said nothing; but she gave me both her
hands, and bending her head until she reached them, kissed mine
fervently and with humble gratitude. Thus began the most extraordinary
partnership between a young man and woman which the world can ever have
known.

For the plighting of it, Virginia took all the order and direction. I
remember that she left me for a short time sitting there on the church
steps, and returned with bread and salt, got I know not how or whence.
She broke the bread, sprinkled it with the salt, and initiated me into a
mystical meal of her own devising.

"This old church under which we partake our sacrament," she told me, "is
called San Pietro's. It is here that, in times gone by, the Bishop of
Pistoja went through the ceremony of a mystical marriage with the Abbess
of the Benedictines, which has now been stopped by the Jesuits, because,
more than once, it was not so mystical a business as it might have been.
But I think the place very suitable for what you and I have to do."

With certain rites, then, of her own contriving--certain sprinklings of
salt in a ring upon the ground about us, upon our heads and knees, with
certain balancing of flakes of bread, and many signs of the Cross,