a
murmured:

"Here we are."

Then Jeanne started violently, and covered her face with her hands.
Maria, who sat next to her, put her arm round her neck, and, bending
close to her, whispered:

"Courage!"

But Jeanne drew back, avoiding her as much as possible, while Noemi
shook her head, signing to her sister not to insist. Maria sighed, and
the carriage, turning to the left, between two dense lines of people,
passed through a gateway. The wheels grated on the gravel and then
stopped. A servant came to the door. The Professor desired them to come
into the villa. Not until then did Giovanni Selva tell his companions
that Benedetto was no longer in the villa, that he had begged to be
carried to his little old room in the gardener's house. The carriage
moved forward a few yards, and the four friends alighted before a
flight of white marble steps, between two groups of palms. It was still
raining, but not heavily, and no one thought about it, neither the
populace crowding round the gate, nor a group of people who were
watching the new arrivals, from the avenue bordered by orange trees,
which ran parallel with the inclosing wall down to the gardener's little
house. Some one left the group. It was di Leyni, who mounted the marble
steps behind Selva, and, stopping him under the arch of the Pompeian
vestibule, spoke to him in a low tone, without so much as a glance at
the magnificent scene which was spread out before them between the two
groups of palms: the river of begonias, tumbling down the slope of
the Aventine, between two banks of _musae_; the black and stormy sky,
striped with white down above the battlements of Porta San Paolo, above
the pyramid of Caio Cestio, and above the little grove of cypress which
springs from the heart of Shelley.

* * * * *

Selva entered the vestibule, and reappeared a moment later with
his wife. They went down the steps with di Leyni, and turned in the
direction of the people, who seemed to be expecting them in the avenue
of orange-trees. At that moment a volley of angry voices rang out at the
gate. The road was full of people. They had been waiting for hours, ever
since the rumour spread in the Testaccio quarter that the Saint of Jenne
had returned to Villa Mayda, but was ill. So far they had asked only for
news. Now they demanded that a deputation be allowed to enter, and to
see him. The servants refused to take the message, and an exchange of
angry w