“My love, my love, what a frightful duty!  Is it necessary?”

“It is necessary that my father should know, certainly.”

“But what responsibility!”

“You have no responsibility whatever.  Anneli will go with me.  All that I ask of you, dear Madame Potecki, is to take the message to my father.  You will; will you not?”

“More than that I will do for you,” said the little woman, boldly.  “I see there is unhappiness; you are suffering, my child.  Well, I will plunge into it; I will see your father:  this cannot be allowed.  It is a dangerous thing to interfere—­who knows better than I?  But to sit near you is to be inspired; to touch your hand is to gain the courage of a giant.  Yes, I will speak to your father; all shall be put right.”

The girl scarcely heard her.

“There is another thing I would ask of you,” she said, slowly and wistfully, “but not here.  May I come to you when the lesson is over?”

“At two:  yes.”

So it was that Natalie called on her friend shortly after two o’clock and was shown into the little parlor.  She was rather pale.  She sat down at one side of the table.

“I wished to ask your advice, dear Madame Potecki,” she said, in a low voice, and with her eyes down.  “Now you must suppose a case.  You must suppose that—­that two people love each other—­better—­better than anything else in the world, and that they are ready to sacrifice a great deal for each other.  Well, the man is ordered away! it is a banishment from his own country, perhaps forever; and he is very brave about it, and will not complain.  Now you must suppose that the girl is very miserable about his going away, and blames herself; and perhaps—­perhaps wishes—­to do something to show she understands his nobleness—­his devotion; and she would do anything in the world, Madame Potecki—­to prove her love to him—­”

“But, child, child, why do you tremble so?”

“I wish you to tell me, Madame Potecki—­I wish you to tell me—­whether—­you would consider it unwomanly—­unmaidenly—­for her to go and say to him, ’You are too brave and unselfish to ask me to go with you.  Now I offer myself to you.  If you must go, why not I—­your wife?”

Madame Potecki started up in great alarm.

“Natalie, what do you mean?”

“I only—­wished to—­to ask—­what you would think.”

She was very pale, and her lips were tremulous; but she did not break down.  Madame Potecki was apparently far more agitated than she was.

“My child, my child, I am afraid you are on the brink of some wild thing!”

“Is that that I have repeated to you what a girl ought to do?” Natalie said, almost calmly.  “Do you think it is what my mother would have done, Madame Potecki?  They have told me she was a brave woman.”

CHAPTER XXXI.

IN A GARDEN AT POSILIPO.