so that she admonished her companion to satisfy his curiosity
while she patiently awaited his return. The hour and the place were much
to her taste--she should enjoy being briefly alone. Ralph accordingly
went off with the cicerone while Isabel sat down on a prostrate column
near the foundations of the Capitol. She wanted a short solitude, but
she was not long to enjoy it. Keen as was her interest in the rugged
relics of the Roman past that lay scattered about her and in which the
corrosion of centuries had still left so much of individual life, her
thoughts, after resting a while on these things, had wandered, by a
concatenation of stages it might require some subtlety to trace, to
regions and objects charged with a more active appeal. From the Roman
past to Isabel Archer's future was a long stride, but her imagination
had taken it in a single flight and now hovered in slow circles over
the nearer and richer field. She was so absorbed in her thoughts, as she
bent her eyes upon a row of cracked but not dislocated slabs covering
the ground at her feet, that she had not heard the sound of approaching
footsteps before a shadow was thrown across the line of her vision. She
looked up and saw a gentleman--a gentleman who was not Ralph come back
to say that the excavations were a bore. This personage was startled as
she was startled; he stood there baring his head to her perceptibly pale
surprise.

"Lord Warburton!" Isabel exclaimed as she rose.

"I had no idea it was you. I turned that corner and came upon you."

She looked about her to explain. "I'm alone, but my companions have just
left me. My cousin's gone to look at the work over there."

"Ah yes; I see." And Lord Warburton's eyes wandered vaguely in the
direction she had indicated. He stood firmly before her now; he had
recovered his balance and seemed to wish to show it, though very kindly.
"Don't let me disturb you," he went on, looking at her dejected pillar.
"I'm afraid you're tired."

"Yes, I'm rather tired." She hesitated a moment, but sat down again.
"Don't let me interrupt you," she added.

"Oh dear, I'm quite alone, I've nothing on earth to do. I had no
idea you were in Rome. I've just come from the East. I'm only passing
through."

"You've been making a long journey," said Isabel, who had learned from
Ralph that Lord Warburton was absent from England.

"Yes, I came abroad for six months--soon after I saw you last. I've been
in Turkey and Asia Minor;