Un bacio di
FLORIAN."
"Then he has left for Naples?" said Bonpre, to whom Prince Pietro
had read this letter--"A sudden departure, is it not?"
"Very sudden!"
"He will not know what has happened to Angela--"
"Oh he will be sure to hear that!" said the Prince--"To-night it
will be in all the newspapers both of Rome and Naples. Angela's
light cannot be hidden under a bushel!"
"True. Then of course he will return at once."
"Naturally. If he hears the news on his way, he will probably be
back to-night--" said Sovrani, but his fuzzy brows were still
puckered. Some uncomfortable thought seemed to trouble him,--and
presently, as if moved by a sudden inexplicable instinct, he took
the basket of lilies away from where he had set it in front of his
daughter's picture, and transferred it to a side-table. Cardinal
Bonpre, always observant, noticed his action.
"You will not leave the flowers there?" he queried.
"No. The picture is a sacred thing!--it is an almost living Christ!-
-in whom Varillo does not believe!"
The Cardinal lifted his eyes protestingly.
"Yet you let the child marry him?"
Sovrani passed one hand wearily across his brows.
"Let us not talk of marriage," he said--"Death is nearer to us to-
day than life! I am opposed to the match--I always have been,--and
who knows--who knows what may not yet prevent it--" He paused,
thinking,--then turning a solicitous glance on his brother-in-law's
frail figure he said--"Felix, you look weary,--let me attend you to
your own rooms, that you may rest.
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