Ah! if my paper were a cloth of gold, and my pen in moving traced characters of diamond and pearl, yet any words which speak of you would be ineffectually honoured by such transcription! In the miserable days and nights I have passed between life and death, it is your image which has consoled me, the echo of your delicate voice which has soothed my pain, the remembrance of the last hours I spent with you which has gilded the feverish dreams of my sickness.

You are the guardian angel of a most unhappy man, Donna Tullia.

Do you know it?
But for you I would have wooed death as a comforter.

As it is, I have struggled desperately to keep my grasp upon life, in the hope of once more seeing your smile and hearing your happy laugh; perhaps--I dare not expect it--I may receive from you some slight word of sympathy, some little half-sighed hint that you do not altogether regret having been in these long weeks the unconscious comforter of my sorrowing spirit and tormented body.

You would hardly know me, could you see me; but saving for your sweet spiritual presence, which has rescued me from the jaws of death, you would never have seen me again.