In a second or two she was ready, and he also.

“There are so many things I shall have to tell Maurice,” he said, just as they were about to leave the house.  “But do you think I shall be able to tell him, Ntoniella?  No.  He must guess.  What you have been to me, what you are to me, how can I tell him or any one?”

He took both her hands in his and looked long and lovingly into her upturned face.

“Ntonie, tu si state a sciorta mia!” he said, meaning thereby that good-fortune had befallen him at last.  It was a pretty speech, and Nina, with her beautiful dark eyes fixed on his, answered him in the same dialect, and almost in the same terms, if in a lower voice: 

“E a sciorta mia si tu!”

THE END.