old her
that she must leave him to take at once the necessary measures for
reviving her husband.

"I implore you to return to the hotel, signora," he said earnestly. "It
will not be well for you to remain here."

Sophy rose at once, but her eyes fastened on Peppin's face.

"Will _you_ stay with him, too?" she asked.

"_Si! Si! Sciora!_" he answered eagerly. "_Staro_" (I will stay).

The Padrone came up and offered her his arm. The fat, kind-hearted woman
also came up, though her great bust still ached from Sophy's frenzied
blows.

"_Cara signora_," she pleaded humbly, "allow me to accompany you."

Between the Padrone and this kindly soul Sophy went obediently back to
the hotel.

Tilda and Rosa had both gone for a walk with Bobby along the high-road.
Tilda had missed one of the smaller bags, and wished to see if it had
been left by mistake with Luigi. So the two women had gone back to Villa
Bianca, and were there when the accident happened. Not until Morelli and
Peppin had been at work together over Chesney for twenty minutes did
they return with Luigi, who, on hearing the terrible news, ran straight
to help resuscitate his master. All the women in the hotel gathered
round Rosa. She yielded Bobby to one of them, and began to sob and
strike her breast and forehead in despair.

Tilda, her round face blotched with pallor, went straight to her lady.
She found Sophy standing by a window that overlooked the shore.

"Oh, Mrs. Chesney!" faltered the girl, beginning to tremble. "May I stay
with you?"

"No ... please...." said her mistress without turning. The girl went out
obediently, and sat crouched in a chair near the door. Some women stole
up and began whispering gruesome details to her. She listened
half-unwilling, half-fascinated. The insatiable craving of the lower
classes for "_le frisson_" made her listen, but she hated herself for
doing it, and them for telling her so eagerly. The fat woman, whom Sophy
had not permitted to remain with her, and to whose care Rosa had given
Bobby, took the boy to her room and fed him bonbons, eating some herself
to encourage him, and turning aside every now and then to cry again over
the poor _tousin_ whose Babbo had just been drowned, and who was so
innocently gay over this unexpected feast of sweetmeats.

And Sophy, all alone at her window in the bleak hotel bedroom, stood and
gazed at the little group on the beach, where Morelli, Peppin, and Luigi
were striving to restor