Page:By order of the Czar.djvu/266

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254 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.

11 Ah," said Philip, " if one only had imagination enough to see the other side of this wonderful picture," as the boat floated once more out of the broad moonlight into the shadow ; " if one only had the heart to think only of its glories, its pageants, its color, its victories, its laughter, its merry-makings."

" Yes," said Dolly, thinking she felt all this, but mis- taking the depression that had fallen upon her fancy for something more than the woman's instinct of trouble that was beginning to cloud it. " Yes, indeed, it seems im- possible to think of the happy side of life in those days when Venice was mistress of the seas."

" But you don't mean to say, Dolly, that you are lan- guishing under the shadow of her degeneracy and down- fall ? " remarked Walter briskly.

" Yes, I am ; at least I feel sad, and I don't know of any other cause for my sadness than lies in the contemplation of these beautiful remiin; of greatness."

" I wonder," thought Philip, " how she would feel had she the cause of tribulation that afflicts me ? " for as in human faces that Jewish face we^wot of was the most tenderly sweet and pathetic, so the sad glamour of it asso- ciated itself in his mind with the ruined palaces, the silent halls, the sleeping moonlight, the whispering waters, the wailing music of this midnight travel. He thought of Milan. The memory of the journey to Dover had grown old. He believed when the locomotive was panting on its way to its Venetian marshes that he was putting miles and miles between himself and temptation. He was resolved that if it were not so, in fact, it should be so in regard to his conduct. Walking with Dolly in the sunshine at Milan, and also when listening to the organ in the great Cathedral, there he had repeated these vows to himself, and had shown special mirks of attention to the girl who was to be his wife, insomuch that Jenny had remarked to