"'Is she beautiful?' asked Camillo.
"'Wonderful,' responded his friend, and said no more. He trailed his hands in the water, and then wiped them across his brow. He took off his hat and faced the evening breeze from the sea. He cried to the gondoliers that they were lazy—that the gondola did not move. It was darting like a wind over the water.
"The next day they returned to the island—and the next. But at sunset, Luigi did not come to the gondola. Camillo waited, and sat until it was quite dark. Then he went through the garden of the convent, and inquired for the painter. They sought him in the parlor. He was not there. The abbess was not there. Upon the easel stood her portrait partly finished—strangely beautiful. Camillo had followed into the room, and stood suddenly before the picture. He had not seen Sulpizia since she was a child. Even his fancy had scarcely dreamed of a face so beautiful. His knees trembled as he stood, and he fell before it in the attitude of prayer. The last red flash of daylight fell upon the picture. The eyes smiled—the lips were slightly parted—a glow of awakening life trembled all through the features.
"The strong man's heart was melted, and the nuns beheld him kneeling and weeping before the portrait of their abbess.
"But where was she?
"Nobody knew. There was no clue—except that the gondola of the convent was gone.
"Camillo took the portrait and stepped into his gondola. He returned to the city, to the palace of Sulpizia's parents. Slowly he went up the great staircase, dark and silent, up which his eager steps had followed the flying feet of Sulpizia. He entered the saloon slowly, like a man who carries a heavy burden—but rather in his heart than in his hands.
"'It is all that remains to you of your daughter,' said he in a low voice, throwing back his cloak, and revealing the marvellous beauty of their child's portrait to the amazed parents. Then came the agony—a child lost—a friend false.
"Camillo returned to us and told the tale. I felt my heart wither and grow old. My mother was grieved in her heart for her son's sorrow—in her pride for its kind and method. Fiora did not smile any more. Her step was no longer bounding upon the floor and the stairs, and the year afterward she married the Marchese Cicada.