ught for a moment of going there and trying
to find them in time for luncheon. Then she recoiled from the idea of
being with her mother-in-law for several hours. But she was too restless
to read or go out in the gondola. Rosa told her that Lady Wychcote had
gone to Murano by steamer.

She decided finally that she would take a long walk among the little
by-streets of Venice and have luncheon at some small _ristorante_, all
alone. She went out into the soft brilliance of the September day, and
the very radiance of the sunshine had a curious melancholy for her mood.
It was a relief to her, after crossing the ugly iron bridge over the
Grand Canal, to find herself in the shadowed by-ways. Now and then,
through a gate in some wall, a plot of flowers laughed out at her, or
she saw the flicker of sunlit green high above. But the shadowed water
ran darkly, and the smell of the cool, dank streets was like the breath
of sleeping centuries. She came to the portico of an old church, and
went in. The fumes of incense brought back that day in London, so many
years ago, when she had gone to see Father Raphael of the Poor. She bent
her head, standing all alone in the dark, quiet church, and her heart
hung leaden in her breast. Even Father Raphael could not have helped her
now, she thought ... for there seemed to her no clear way of right and
wrong here. All was subtle, inextricably tangled--a maze of
approximations, instincts, conflicting duties, inclinations.

She roused, glanced listlessly at the paintings over the High Altar,
then went out again. She stood a moment in the street before the church,
considering her next move. She was now not far from the Piazza San
Marco. She recalled a little place in the next Rio where she could get a
simple meal, and had taken a step forward when a burst of laughter made
her look round. Her heart was jumping fast--that laughter was so
painfully familiar--like the whinny of a young mare in springtime. Then
she saw. Three people--a man and two women--had just turned the corner,
about twenty yards away, and were coming towards her. The girl who
walked a yard or so in advance had burnished, ruddy hair. She swung her
white _beret_ in her hand as she walked, and her blowing white serge
gown moulded her handsome legs and vigorous young bust. The man's gait
was rather sullen, the elder woman's frankly protesting.

"For goodness' sake, have some consideration for _me_, at least,
Belinda!" she called fretfu