The Veiled Lady

t only was my own canal alive with the stir and fragrance of the coming summer, but all Venice bore the look of a brid

o the water where there was a dock and a gondola-two, sometimes,-our own and Vittorio's-and particularly on a low, two-story, flat-roofed house,-a kaleidos

ho lived within a stone's throw of the couple, selected morning after morning. He always had an excuse:-he had forgotten the big bucket for my water cups, or the sail, or the extra chair; and would the Signore mind

following; and we would stroll up under the fig trees, and she would begin showing me this and that new piece of furniture, or pot, or kettle, or new bread knife, or scissors, or spoon, which Vittorio had added to

ad water and its connecting link with the row of neighbors' houses flanking the side canal,-and no birds in or out of any nest in al

g to the ground. We Anglo-Saxons flame up indignantly when those we love are attacked, and we demand proofs. "Critica," that bane of Venetian life-what this, that, or the other neighbor tattles to this, that, and the other listener, we dismiss with a wave of the hand, or with fingers tight clench

me. I had caught sight of his white shirt and straw hat as he swung out behind the Salute and headed straight toward me, and saw from the way h

Vittorio has cursed Loretta, torn her wedding

tto

ng brute of a Francesco is telling. It would be over by to-night, but Loretta does not take it like the others: she says nothing. Y

his time, my first thought being ho

owly, so I do not miss a wor

e she bought herself. She will touch nothing Vittorio

ppened? Has

h-people,-to everybody on the side street, saying that Loretta was his old shoes that h

orio beli

me one would tell him-'that fellow meets Loretta every day;' that he was her old lover. These people on the Giudecca do not like the San Giuseppe people, and there is alway

e threw the rin

ing Francesco, and she laughed, and that made him furious; and then he said he had heard her mother was a nobody; and then some one spoke up and said that was true-fools all. And then Loretta, she drew herself up straight and asked who it was had said so, and a woman's voice c

uigi?" The story seemed

she had not been in her bed. She seems like one in a trance-looked at me and held out her hand. I tried to talk to her and tell her it was all a lie, but she only answered-'Ask Francesco,-it is all Francesco,-ask Francesco.' Hurry, Signore,-we

o wonderfully graceful and nothing so expressive of the wearer's moods as these black shawls of the Venetians). She wore her gala dress-the one in which she was married-white muslin with ribbons of scarlet, her wonderful hair in a h

y gondola and h

etta, and let

as if she was trying to focus my face so as to rec

's too late for all

until yo

thing until I f

et into the gondola and let

! My ring is gone! Francesco is the one I want-now--NOW! He knows I

me at the end of the quay. Luigi started after her, but I called him back. Nothing could be done until her fury, or her agony, had spent itself. These volcanoes a

e been those which have dropped out of the sky,-the unexpected, the incom

as out on the sidewalk tearing her hair; calling on God; uttering shriek after shriek. The quay and bridge were a mass of people-some looking with staring eyes

k, one hand clutching the bosom of his shirt. Against the wall stood Loretta; no

illed him!

s him-I did, WITH THIS!" and s

s for Luigi and me. All the light an

ocked her up in one of the mouldy cells below the water line-d

the two had stood at Francesco's bedside in the hospital of San Paulo. Francesco was still alive, and with Father Garola bending over him had repeated his confession to them both. He was madly in love with her, he moaned, and had spread the report hoping that V

an when the officer appeared. "Let them talk to eac

t orders, Signore, I cannot. He can see he

wn her from a child. Perhaps an order from headquarters might be of some use." We were standing, at the t

ant, gave an order in a low voice and, with the words to Vittorio-"You are not to spea

sent for, then the white crumpled dress, and then the dark eyes searching the gloom of the corridor. Vi

face and she would have cried out for joy had not Luigi cautioned her. For a moment the two stood with fingers intertwined, their bowed foreheads kept apart by the col

er weddi