The water subsided. An inward
voice said to her: "What if the professor be mistaken? What if it be not
true that the table answered first yes and then no? what if it be not
true about the lying spirits?" She drew back from the parapet, and with
slow steps, went up to her house.

She found her uncle in the kitchen sitting in the chimney-corner, the
tongs in his hand, and his glass of milk beside him. Cia and Leu were
sewing.

"Well," said Uncle Piero, "I have been to the Custom-House. The
Receiver is in bed with the jaundice, but I spoke with the
_Sedentario_."

"What about, uncle?"

"About Lugano. About your journey to Lugano on the twenty-fifth. He has
promised to close an eye and let you pass."

Luisa was silent, and stood thoughtfully watching the fire. Presently
she gave Leu some orders for the next day, and then begged her uncle to
come into the parlour with her.

"What for?" said he, with his habitual simplicity, "You can't have any
great secrets to tell. Let us stay here where the fire is."

Cia lit a candle. "We will go out," said she.

The uncle made his usual grimace, expressive of compassion for the
weaknesses of others, but remained silent. Draining his glass of milk,
he passed it to Luisa. She took the glass, and said softly: "I have not
decided yet."

"What?" the uncle exclaimed sharply. "What is it you have not decided?"

"Whether I shall go to Isola Bella."

"Now what the deuce----?"

Uncle Piero was utterly incapable of grasping such a thing as this.

"And why should you not go?"

She answered calmly, and as if stating a perfectly obvious fact:

"I am afraid I shall not be able to leave Maria."

"Oh, come now!" Uncle Piero exclaimed. "Sit down over there," and he
pointed to a bench in the chimney-corner opposite him. Then he said, in
that serious, honest voice of his, which seemed to come from his heart:

"My dear Luisa, you have lost your bearings!"

And raising his arms, he uttered a long "Ah!" and then let them fall
upon his knees once more.

"Lost your bearings completely!" he repeated. He sat silent for a time,
his head bent, while behind his pursed lips there was the rumbling of
words in course of formation, which presently burst forth.

"I would never have believed it! It does not seem possible! But when,"
and here he raised his head and looked Luisa straight in the face, "but
when we once begin to lose our bearings it is all up with us. And you,
my dear, began to lose y