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"Cruel?" she echoed

"Yes! To ave such a dreamy, spiritlike sweetness to her whole personality that for the moment she seemed to float before him like an aerial vision rather than a woman of flesh and blood, and the bold desire which possessed him to seize and clasp her in his ar like fear Her eyes rested on his with a full clear frankness

"If I aently, "it is only to be more kind!"

She left hi the chains of roses which at this season seearden in brilliant knots of colour, and then go down the terraces, one by one, towards thepine and olive, where Don Aloysius governed his little group of religious brethren

He guessed her intent

"She will tell hiious, semi-scientific notions, it will be easy for her to persuade hiirl to this de 'There shall be no ht her capable of tolerating such a criia,--but paused as he perceived Professor Ardini advancing from the interior of the house, his hands clasped behind his back and his furrowed brows bent in gloomy meditation

"You have a difficult case?" he queried

"More than difficult!" replied Ardini--"Beyond human skill! Perhaps not beyond the ed his shoulders He was a sceptic of sceptics and his modern-world experiences had convinced him that what man could not do was not to be done at all

"The latest renora is--love!" he said, carelessly--"The girl who is here,--Manella Soriso--has made up her ave an expressive gesture

"Altro! If she has made up her mind, heaven itself will not move her! It will be a sublime sacrifice of one life for another,--ould you? Such sacrifices are coh the world does not hear of them In this instance there is no one to prevent it"

"You approve--you tolerate it?" exclairily

"I have no power to approve or to tolerate"--replied the scientist, coldly--"The ht to interfere Nor,--I think,--have YOU!--I have stated such facts as exist--that theto the strength of the life-centres he will probably exist in his present condition for a full term of years To keep him so alive will entail considerable care and expense He will need a male nurse--probably two--food of the best and absolutely tranquil surroundings If the Signora, who is rich and generous, guarantees these necessities, and the girl who loves him desires to be his wife under such terrible conditions, I do not see how anyone can object to the e"