'Yes,—that's the ambassador. Oh! I'm glad you'll see him. He's a charmer, is our chief! And that's his married daughter, who's keeping house for him just now.—I'll tell you something, if you'll keep a secret'—he bent towards her,—'He likes Mrs. Burgoyne of course,—everybody does—but he don't take Manisty at his own valuation. I've heard him say some awfully good things to Manisty—you'd hardly think a man would get over them.—Who's that on the other side?'
He put his hand over his eyes for a moment, then burst into a laugh.—
'Why, it's the other man of letters!—Bellasis. I should think you've read some of his poems—or plays? Rome has hardly been able to hold the two of them this winter. It's worse than the archæologists. Mrs. Burgoyne is always trying to be civil to him, so that he mayn't make uncivil remarks about Manisty. I say—don't you think she's delightful?'
He lowered his voice as he looked round upon his companion, but his blue eyes shone.
'Mrs. Burgoyne?'—said Lucy—'Yes, indeed!—She's so—so very kind.'
'Oh! she's a darling, is Eleanor Burgoyne. And I may call her that, you know, for I'm her cousin, just as Manisty is—only on the other side. I have been trying to look after her a bit this winter in Rome; she never looks after herself. And she's not a bit strong.—You know her history of course?'
He lowered his voice with young importance, speaking almost in a whisper, though the advancing party were still far away. Lucy shook her head.
'Well, it's a ghastly tale, and I've only a minute.—Her husband, you see, had pneumonia—they were in Switzerland together, and he'd taken a chill after a walk—and one night he was raving mad, mad you understand with delirium and fever—and poor Eleanor was so ill, they had taken her away from her husband, and put her to bed on the other side of the hotel.—And there was a drunken nurse—it's almost too horrible, isn't it?—and while she was asleep Mr. Burgoyne got up, quite mad—and he went into the next room, where the baby was, without waking anybody, and he took the child out asleep in his arms, back to his own room where the windows were open, and there he threw himself and the boy out together—headlong! The hotel was high up,—built, one side of it, above a rock wall, with a stream below it.—There had been a great deal of rain, and the river was swollen. The bodies were not found for days.—When poor Eleanor woke up, she had lost everything.—Oh! I dare say, when the first shock was over, the husband didn't so much matter—he hadn't made her at all happy.—But the child!'—
He stopped, Mrs. Burgoyne's gay voice could be heard as she approached. All the elegance of the dress was visible, the gleam of a diamond at the throat, the flowers at the waist. Lucy Foster's eyes, dim with sudden tears, fastened themselves upon the slender, advancing form.