you know that I did not commit them. You know

that you tempted me, but that I never did so!"
and that she had torn the list from him indignantly
and triumphantly. Padre Costa now heard the
confessions of each of them, undertaking to tell
Agnes of her danger. He and Mr. Roskelly
advised sending for the Holy Communion. I my-
self told Lucy of her precarious state, and that I
had sent for the Blessed Sacrament. She made
no answer; and her pulse, which I held the while,
did not vary.
But when I had left the room she
seemed much agitated; and a shiver passed through
her limbs. She calmed herself, however, and said
to my wife, “I did not know Agnes was so ill. I
am so sorry for you!"

At ten o'clock, the assistant curate brought the Holy Communion, and gave it first to Lucy, and then, upstairs, to Agnes. I held up both their heads, and they swallowed with difficulty.

Lucy then asked for some arrowroot, with wine and water-" mind, white wine, Marsala." She could hardly speak; but she took a good deal of the nourishment. Agnes complained that the communion had been too much hurried: said it was irreverent to have brought it so soon: that she

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had understood from Father Costa that she was to receive on the next morning, fasting.

Padre Costa went away he begged me to inform him how they were, and said he would return in the evening.

At midday, Roskelly came again and, at the same time, Dr. Lanza: old and garrulous, he looked clever. He talked a great deal: told how Sir James Clark had been the first to bring a small quantity of quinine to Naples; and with what good effect they two had first tried it. He, therefore, depended upon quinine, and quinine only. If quinine did not succeed, nothing would. He heard Roskelly's report, and went to see Lucy: and immediately ordered her four grains of quinine every two hours-so as to take forty grains before to-morrow. To Agnes he ordered three grains every two hours. Interrogated as to the nature of the fever, he said that it was a quinine fever-that there was no other name for it: that quinine was the only medicine, and that quinine or nothing would cure it. Bruno had been made to lie in bed to-day; and he ordered him to stay there. Before leaving, he inquired particularly when we had left Rome; and, after calculating the time, said, "This is a Roman malaria fever: you have brought it

with you from Rome, or have picked it up along the coast, in the steamer. It often lies forty days in the blood without showing itself."

I doubted how this could be.

"If, for example," he said, "these two recover, they will certainly have another attack of the fever in October or November. They will not have caught it afresh; but the poison will have lain in them, and will then show itself afresh."

Mr. Roskelly prayed me to ask Dr. Lanza to come again next day-saying that it was such a fearful responsibility for him; and that if anything went wrong, everybody would say it was his fault. Lanza promised to return next day at midday, but insisted that only quinine could be of any avail.

Lucy continued apparently too weak to talk. Agnes talked much, but with difficulty, owing to the paralysis of her tongue. She said to Smith, "Death is not so bad when one is so familiarised with it." To me and to Louie, she said that she would wish to feel herself under the charge or influence of the priest, and to see him again next morning; not that evening. I therefore wrote to Padre Costa, and requested him to defer his visit till then, for I had understood from Lucy also that she did not wish to see him again until the next

day. Agnes went on talking, and in good spirits. She insisted that Louie or the maids ought to go to church this Sunday morning: she told me that she was getting rather thinner, and that she should like her hands to grow delicate, and do credit to her illness when she got up. She and Lucy both wandered frequently in their talk this day, as they had done during the preceding night. Lucy asked if it was true that Mr. Falls, of The Wabash, had been received into the Catholic Church.

Mr. Roskelly came again in the evening, and thought them "all three better." He had thought them better from the second visit he had paid them.

VOL II.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ASSUMPTION.

Change from the Watch Tower.-Death Superstitions.-Misconduct of the Curate.-Convulsions.-The End.-Preparations for the night.

MONDAY 15th.—THE ASSUMPTION.—My wife called me two hours after midnight, because Lucy was sick, and threw up her quinine. We tried mixing it with wine, and she was able to keep it down. About five o'clock, Agnes was in strong convulsions. They passed off. At six, they returned, and we sent for Mr. Roskelly. He could not do anything, but they ceased, and he went away and sent Mrs. Sells, the matron of the English hospital, to act as nurse. I then moved Agnes down from her "Watch Tower" into Bruno's bed-room, putting Bruno into the room beyond, that all might be within reach. I moved her down on her mattress; and had thought that I and Tommaso, the butler, could have done it, but we had to call up two

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