A Night on the Borders of the Black Forest

sal stir of awakening life was to be felt rather than heard in the pleasant morning air, when a certain Englishman, Hugh Girdlestone by name, rose from his lounging attitude against the parapet of

selves one by one, and the Campagna emerge, like

ith its excavations, its columns, its triumphal arches, its scanty turf, its stunted acacias, its indescribable air of repose and desolation; and beyond and around all, the brown and broken Campagna, bounded on the one hand by long chains of snow-streaked Apennines, and on the other by a shining zone of sea. A marvellous panorama! Perhaps, taking it for all in all, the most marvellous panorama that Europe has to show. Hugh Girdlestone knew every feature of it by heart. He was familiar with every crumbling tower and modern campanile, with every spa

skin jacket stopped his truck to kneel for a moment on the lowest step and then trudge on again; and presently an Albano woman lifted the ponderous leather curtain and came out, bringing with her a momentary rush of rolling harmonies. The Englishman listened and lingered, made as if he would go in, and th

om the liking, of foreigners. He expressed and held to his opinions with a decision that they disliked intensely. His voice had a ring of authority that grated upon their ears. His very walk had in it something characteristic and resolute that offended their prejudices. For his appearance, it was as insular as his gait or his accent. He was tall, strongly made, somewhat gaunt and swift-l

aptly defined as the "fatality of air" common to the line of the Stuarts. The look was one which came to his face but rarely-so rarely that many of his inti

orning of this day-this 13th day of Feb

of Chancery practice. He had also been for years in the habit of contributing to the best periodical literature of the day. Within the last four months, after a prolonged opposition on the part of her nearest relatives, he had happily married a young lady of ancient Roman Catholic family and moderate fortune, to whom he had

to show his passport before the clerk would trust it beyond the bars of the little cage in which he sat, and then it was overweight, and he was called upon to pay forty-six bajocchi for extra postage. This done-and it seemed to him that the clerk was wilfully and mal

, but with some degree of impatience; for the fate of more than one project was involved in the sum which this letter of credit might chance to represent. The extension of their tour as far as Naples, the purchase of certain bronzes and cameos, and the date of their return to England, were all de

ok, he then struck off in a north-easterly direction towards some of those narr

e French regiments were turning out, as usual, for morning parade on the Pincio. Here and there a long-haired student might be seen with his colour-box under his arm, trudging away to his work of reproduction in some neighbouring gallery; or a Guarda Nobile, cigar

bright for him as at that moment. The happy present was his own, and the future with all its possible rewards and blessings lay, as it were, unfolded before him. It was not often that he was visited by a holiday mood such as this; and, English as he was, he could sca

ry street of Rome. Here were exquisitely carved rosaries in cedar and coral and precious stones, votive offerings in silver and wax, consecrated palms, coloured prints of saints and martyrs in emblematic frames, missals, crosses, holy water vessels, and wreaths of immortelles. Here a

ide at home, and he knew that he could find nothing in all Rome which she would prefer to this. She would appreciate it as a piece of art, and prize it as a most precious adjunct to her devotions. She would love it, too, for his dear sake, and her eyes would rest upon it when she prayed for him in her o

the breach it made in his purse, and caring for nothing

ms of creeds, and ranking that of the Romanist at a lower level than most, he could yet feel a sort of indulgent admiration for the graceful side of Roman Catholic worship. The flowers, the music, the sculpture, the paintings,

certain by-street near the Quattro Fontane, where he and his little wife occupied an upper floor in a small palazzo situated upon one of the loftiest and healthiest points of the Quirinal Hill. As he neared the spot, a sense of pleasurable excitement came upon him. He smiled, unconsciously to himself, and, scarcely knowi

thy American family; past the third, where, in an atmosphere of stormy solfeggi, lived an Italian tenor and his wife; and on, two steps at a time, to the fourth, where all that he loved best in life awaited his coming! There he paused. His own visiting card was nailed upon the door, and under his name, in

ed as if she might have been the mother of the Gracchi, but who was married, instead, to an honest

with her finger on her

y filled the air of the room with a voluptuous perfume. It was a day of days-a day when to be still in bed seemed almost like

scarcely believe that M

epeated. "What

Signora has not y

she stil

bout half-an-hour ago, and she never heard me. I would not

aughed and shrug

. "I shall wake her, at all events, and she will thank me for doing so.

hands in an ecstasy o

exclaimed. "H

and then, going over to the balcony, gathered a

rita," he said, smiling. "Fetch me those two whi

and gracefully as a woman might have arranged them. This done, he

me-he would not have roused her for the world till all was ready. At the dressing-table he paused and looked round. He could just see the dim outline of her form in the bed. He could just see how one little hand rested on the coverlet, and how her hair lay like a lustrous cloud upon the pillow. Very carefully he th

me she neither

usband, careful even now not to startle her too rudely, gently unclosed

"Ethel, do you kno

l still

e of her cheek, and it struck him that she looked strangely pale. His heart gave a great throb

eated. "My darl

her hand, her cheek, her neck-then uttered one wild

was

nd fixed a sense of conviction as if he had been prepared for it by months of anxiety. He did not ask himself why it was so. He did not ask himself by what swift and cruel dise

the wall, voiceless, tearless, paralysed, unable to think, or move, or do anything

persons in the room; of being led away like a child, and placed in a chair beside an open window; and of Margherita kneeling at his fe

," he said

irst word he

m, Signore," sobbed

and, and turned

replied.

an of about forty years of age, with something of a military bearing. His first step was to clear the place of intruders-of the English family from the first floor, of the Americans from the second, of the Italian tenor and his wife, and of the servants who had cro

rror to the lips; touched the passive hand; lifted first one eyelid, then the other; and felt

he said gently. "Life has been ex

the c

slightly shrugg

he replied, "without

his face in his han

ntinued Signor Salimbeni, "or whether, as I am more inc

Hugh Girdlestone was startled from his apathy. He looked up, and saw the

altered. "W

f the heart, like a mere speck upon a surface of pure marble, was visible a tiny puncture-a spot so small, so insignificant,

he repeated. "Wh

fatal spot. Then he stooped, looked into it more narrowly, shuddered, rose once again to his f

rde