Excerpt from By the Tiber: By the Author of Signor Monaldini's Niece Gigi raved himself to death. He was very nearly a beast, this vine-dresser, dull and easy-humored when all went well, and lashing himself into a blind fury when he was crossed; and his fury, having nothing else to spend itself upon, turned its poison backward, and gave him a paralytic stroke. He might have recovered had he chosen to keep quiet; but with returning health came returning passion, and a sec ond stroke followed the first one. Only when death was at hand did the beast in him lie down, and some thing of higher calm look out of his eyes. And then, at last, Felicita, the ghost of herself, came stealing in one evening, and sank sobbing on her knees by his bedside, and dropped a purse of gold into his chilling hand. He asked no questions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.