from the half-open, door behind Giovanni, saying almost timidly In
French:

"May I come in?"

Giovanni, smiling, turned half round, and stretching out his arm,
encircled the young woman pressing her to his side without answering,

She felt she must not speak; that her husband's soul was following the
dying night, and the mystic song of the bells. She rested her head on
his shoulder, and only after a moment of religious silence did she ask
softly;

"Shall we say our prayer?"

A pressure of the arm encircling her was the answer. Neither her lips
nor his moved. Only the eyes of both dilated, straining towards the
Infinite, and assumed that look of reverence and sadness which mirrors
the thoughts that remain unspoken, the uncertain future, the dark
portals which lead to God. The bells became silent, and Signora Selva,
fixing her blue eyes on her husband's eager gaze, offered him her lips.
The man's snowy head and the woman's fair face met in a long kiss which
would have filled the world with astonishment. Maria d'Arxel, at one and
twenty, had fallen In love with Giovanni Selva. after having read one of
his books on religious philosophy, translated into French. She wrote to
the unknown author in such ardent words of admiration, that Selva, in
answering, alluded to his fifty-six years and his white hair. The girl
replied that she was aware of both, that she neither offered nor asked
for love, she only craved a few lines from time to time. Her letters
sparkled with brilliant intellect. They came to Selva when he was