re he should not want it,
but he insisted.

"I have enough to keep me, now, till I hear from other sources, with the
means for returning home. I see no object in continuing here, under the
circumstances."

In the relief which she felt for him Clementina's heart throbbed with a
pain which was all for herself. Why should she wait any longer either?
For that instant she abandoned the hope which had kept her up so long; a
wave of homesickness overwhelmed her.

"I should like to go back, too," she said. "I don't see why I'm staying."

"Mr. Osson, why can't you let me"--she was going to say--"go home with
you?" But she really said what was also in her heart, "Why can't you let
me give you the money to go home? It is all Mrs. Landa's money, anyway."

"There is certainly that view of the matter," he assented with a
promptness that might have suggested a lurking grudge for the
vice-consul's decision that she ought to keep the money Mrs. Lander had
given her.

But Clementina urged unsuspiciously: "Oh, yes, indeed! And I shall feel
better if you take it. I only wish I could go home, too!"

The minister was silent while he was revolving, with whatever scruple or
reluctance, a compromise suitable to the occasion. Then he said, "Why
should we not return together?"

"Would you take me?" she entreated.

"That should be as you wished. I am not much acquainted with the usages
in such matters, but I presume that it would be entirely practicable. We
could ask the vice-consul."

"Yes--"

"He must have had considerable experience in cases of the kind. Would
your friends meet you in New York, or--"

"I don't know," said Clementina with a pang for the thought of a meeting
she had sometimes fancied there, when her lover had come out for her, and
her father had been told to come and receive them. "No," she sighed,
"the'e wouldn't be time to let them know. But it wouldn't make any
difference. I could get home from New Yo'k alone," she added, listlessly.
Her spirits had fallen again. She saw that she could not leave Venice
till she had heard in some sort from the letter she had written. "Perhaps
it couldn't be done, after all. But I will see Mr. Bennam about it, Mr.
Osson; and I know he will want you to have that much of the money. He
will be coming he'e, soon."

He rose upon what he must have thought her hint, and said, "I should not
wish to have him swayed against his judgment."

The vice-consul came not long after the minister