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290 whispered he:—"It is months since I have breathed that name, but deem you that her image has not been present with me?—ay, present as when we wandered through the pine forest, her frank, sweet smile encouraging those dreams of the future at which she affected to laugh. But both then believed that the future was at their will. Ah, Francesca! who could have thought that the world would spoil a nature so kindly and yet so glad!"

Francesca repressed the answer which rose to her lips. She could have said that the Marie of Guido's love was indeed the creature of his fantasy. But when an allusion thus lingers to the last, it is worse than useless—it is cruel, cruel, to attempt its destruction.

"And yet," continued he, "How evil has her influence been over me! The imagination, which wasted itself in bringing her ever before me, inventing our discourse, combining every possible and impossible event, so that they did but bring us together—of what efforts was not this faculty capable, had it been more worthily exercised! It matters little, though—mine was destined to be an unfinished existence. I firmly believe that my mind has here been trained and tried by suffering, and that the development of its powers is reserved for another sphere."