had been painted? I--for whom her great heart had sorrowed as
for the thin, beaten cab-horses of Paris! Hope? All I could hope
was that she might never know, and I be left with some little
shred of dignity in her eyes!

Who cannot see that it was for my friend to fear? At times, with
him, it was despair, but of that brave kind one loves to see --
never a quiver of the lip, no winking of the eyes to keep tears
back. And I, although of a people who express everything in
every way, I understood what passed within him and found time to
sorrow for him.

Most of all, I sorrowed for him as we waited for her on the
terrace of the Bertolini, that perch on the cliff so high that
even the noises of the town are dulled and mingle with the sound
of the thick surf far below.

Across the city, and beyond, we saw, from the terrace, the old
mountain of the warm heart, smoking amiably, and the lights of
Torre del Greco at its feet, and there, across the bay, I
beheld, as I had nightly so long ago, the lamps of Castellamare,
of Sorrento; then, after a stretch of water, a twinkling which
was Capri. How good it was to know that all these had not taken
advantage of my long absence to run away and vanish, as I had
half feared they would. Those who have lived here love them
well; and it was a happy thought that the beautiful lady knew
them now, and shared them. I had never known quite all their
loveliness until I felt that she knew it too. This was something
that I must never tell her--yet what happiness there was in
it!