CHAPTER XXV.
"Erika! Erika!" old Countess Lenzdorff calls in a joyful voice across the garden of the Hôtel Britannia. "Erika!"
The old lady is sitting by the breast-work bordering on the Canal Grande. Erika is coming out of a side-door of the hotel. Her grandmother had sent her upstairs for her parasol. How strange the girl looks, with cheeks so white and lips so feverishly red! But that is a secondary matter: what must strike every one who looks at her to-day is the transfigured light in her eyes,--a light shining as through tears.
"Come quickly!" her grandmother calls. "I have a surprise for you." But Erika does not come quickly: she walks slowly through the blooming garden to her grandmother, who has an open letter in her hand.
The little garden is basking in the sunshine; the heavens are cloudless; the lagoon looks as if it were sprinkled with diamonds, as the black gondolas glide past, the sinewy brown throats of the gondoliers shining like bronze. In the fragrant garden can be heard, now loud, now faint, the sound of gay voices on the water mingled with the constant lapping of the waves and the jangle of church-bells.
"From whom does this letter come?" her grandmother asks Erika, with a smile.
"I--I cannot imagine," the girl murmurs. Her pale cheeks grow paler, and a fixed look comes into her shining eyes.
"Indeed? From whom should a letter come which I am so glad to receive?"
Erika starts.
"From Goswyn!" says her grandmother. "But what a face is that!"