Irene remained sitting like one stunned on the banks of the beautiful river.

Her white hands clasped each other convulsively in her lap, her head drooped on her breast, she stared blankly and dreamily before her, seeming lost to the beauty of the fair Italian scene, and deaf to the soft sounds that filled the air with a pleasant murmur.

Heart and brain were in a terrible tumult.

Her head ached and throbbed almost to bursting, her heart beat fast and hard in her breast.

The joy and triumph she would have experienced in the knowledge of her poor mother's innocence and honor were all damped by the thought of the costly price she was required to pay before she could have the happiness of bearing the glad tidings to the wronged, unhappy woman.

With deepest self-reproach the girl recalled her own frenzied reproaches to that beautiful, sorrow-stricken parent on the fatal night when she had been so maddened by the revelation of the angry Bertha. She looked back as though years had intervened upon the Irene of that summer night as a rude, impertinent, willful child.

"Is it any wonder my mother left me to the death I courted in my wild despair?" she thought. "How could I, who should have soothed sorrow, turned upon her so cruelly? Poor, unhappy Ellie, as I used to call her, what sorrows may she not be enduring now? What insolence, what cruelty, at the hands of her overbearing mother and sister? Even I, her child, did not spare her my reproaches in her dark hour, and how should they who love her less than I did?"

In the flood-tide of remorseful affection that swept over her heart, she longed to go home to her mother, to take her in her arms, and say, lovingly: "Mother, darling, you and your husband were both cruelly wronged. Here are the papers that will prove your wifely honor. Take them and forgive me my wicked reproaches."

Alas, between her and that beautiful hour which fancy painted so glowingly, there yawned a dread, impassable gulf!

"Even if I could consent to pay Julius Revington's terrible price for those papers, I could not do so. I am already wedded," she said to herself; and her heart thrilled strangely at the thought.

The remembrance of his threat sent a shiver of dread thrilling through her frame. To-morrow he would tell Mrs. Leslie and the Stuarts that she was a child of shame; that her beautiful, pure-hearted mother was a sinful, erring woman. How should she bear it? she asked herself, with a moan.

The evening sun sunk lower and lower; the twittering birds flew home to their nests; the cool, soft dew began to fall on Irene's face and hands. She rose with a shiver, as though of mortal cold, and dragged herself back wearily to the villa.

Then she felt that she could not endure to meet the cold, curious faces of Mrs. Stuart and her friends just then. She stole quietly up to her own room, closed and locked the door, and threw herself wretchedly down upon the floor, with her face hidden on her arm.

She did not know how long she had lain there, wretched, forlorn, despairing, when she was roused by the tap of a servant outside, who desired her presence at dinner.

She replied, through the closed door, that she was ill, and did not wish any, and returned to her crouching posture on the floor, as if she found a grim pleasure in physical discomfort, as a set-off to her mental trouble.

She felt angry with herself for the fairness that had won Julius Revington's love.

"If I had been homely and ill-shapen, instead of fair and graceful, he would never have loved me, and he might then have given me those papers for pure pity's sake, with no such condition attached," she told herself, sadly.

Two hours later Mrs. Leslie came tapping softly at the door.

"You must let me in, Irene, for I shall keep 'tapping, tapping,' like the raven, until you do," she called out gaily.

With a smothered sigh Irene admitted her friend.

"What, all in darkness? I beg your pardon, I did not know you had retired," exclaimed the lady.

Irene struck a light and then Mrs. Leslie gazed in wonder at the pale, haggard face.

"My dear child, what is the matter with you?" she cried out in wonder.

"It is nothing—only a headache, I—I have been lying down," she faltered, miserably.

The lady glanced at the white, unrumpled bed, and then at Irene, curiously.

"Where—upon the floor?" she inquired, with a mixture of sarcasm and amazement.

"I—believe so; I felt so bad I did not think," answered Irene, trying to smile.

"Poor dear," said the lady, full of womanly compassion; "if I had known you were so ill I would have come up to you long ago. It was too bad your lying here all by yourself in the dark! In your tight dress, too; I am ashamed of myself! But now I am going to undress you and 'put you in your little bed.'"

Heedless of Irene's gentle expostulations, she proceeded to follow the kind promptings of her womanly heart, and directly she had the girl dressed in her snowy robe de nuit and nestled among the pillows of the snowy bed.

"Now you may shut your eyes, and I will bathe your head with eau de cologne until you fall asleep," she said.

"But indeed it does not ache now. Pray do not trouble yourself," Irene expostulated, now thoroughly ashamed of her innocent little fib.

The lady sat down and began passing her hand tenderly over the pillow.

"I am glad it does not ache any longer," she said, unsuspiciously. "You were sadly missed from among us this evening, my dear," she continued in a light, bantering tone. "Mr. Revington was exceedingly distrait; Miss Smith teased him for a song, but he gave her such a doleful one that he received no encores whatever."

Irene looked so plainly disgusted at the mention of her lover's name that Mrs. Leslie forebore to tease her. She delicately changed the subject.

"Mr. Stuart came back from his trip to Florence this evening, and brought us some sad news," she said.

Irene tried hard to look interested in this communication, but failed dismally. Her own troubles absorbed all her care.

"There has been the most terrible ocean disaster," continued Mrs. Leslie. "Two American steamers, one homeward bound, the other en route for Italy, collided in mid-ocean at midnight, with a horrible loss of human life. Is it not awful?"

Irene tried to look properly shocked, but heart and brain were so numbed by her own grief that she could scarcely comprehend the extent of the calamity her friend was bewailing.

"It is very dreadful," she murmured, feebly.

"Is it not?" said Mrs. Leslie, in awe-struck tones; "and, only think, Irene, I was personally acquainted with one of the passengers who perished in the wreck. I met him once while visiting my sister in Baltimore. He was very handsome and agreeable, besides being very wealthy. His name was Guy Kenmore."

She paused, and uttered a cry of alarm in the next breath. Irene had gasped convulsively once or twice, then fainted dead away.