"It looks more like no living," said the vice-consul. "Why didn't the old
fool let some one know that he was short of money?" He went on with a
partial transfer of his contempt of the preacher to her, "I suppose if
he'd been sick instead of hungry, you'd have waited over till the next
steamer for him."

She cast down her eyes. "I don't know what you'll think of me. I should
have been sorry for him, and I should have wanted to stay." She lifted
her eyes and looked the vice-consul defiantly in the face. "But he hadn't
the fust claim on me, and I should have gone--I couldn't, have helped
it!--I should have gone, if he had been dying!"

"Well, you've got more horse-sense," said the vice-consul, "than any ten
men I ever saw," and he testified his admiration of her by putting his
arms round her, where she stood before him, and kissing her. "Don't you
mind," he explained. "If my youngest girl had lived, she would have been
about your age."

"Oh, it's all right, Mr. Bennam," said Clementina.

When the time came for them to leave Venice, Mr. Orson was even eager to
go. The vice-consul would have gone with them in contempt of the official
responsibilities which he felt to be such a thankless burden, but there
was really no need of his going, and he and Clementina treated the
question with the matter-of-fact impartiality which they liked in each
other. He saw her off at the station where Maddalena had come to take the
train for Florence in token of her devotion to the signorina, whom she
would not outstay in Venice. She wept long and loud upon Clementina's
neck, so that even Clementina was once moved to put her handkerchief to
her tearless eyes.

At the last moment she had a question which she referred to the vice
consul. "Should you tell him?" she asked.

"Tell who what?" he retorted.

"Mr. Osson-that I wouldn't have stayed for him."

"Do you think it would make you feel any better?" asked the consul, upon
reflection.

"I believe he ought to know."

"Well, then, I guess I should do it."

The time did not come for her confession till they had nearly reached the
end of their voyage. It followed upon something like a confession from
the minister himself, which he made the day he struggled on deck with her
help, after spending a week in his berth.

"Here is something," he said, "which appears to be for you, Miss Claxon.
I found it among some letters for Mrs. Lander which Mr. Bennam gave me
after my arrival, and I only