Diana and Mrs.
Colwood retreated to their rooms to write letters and to rest; Forbes
was hotly engaged in bargaining for an Umbrian _primitif_, which he had
just discovered in an old house in a back street, whither, no doubt, the
skilful antiquario had that morning transported it from his shop; and
Sir James had gone out for a stroll, on the splendid road which winds
gradually down the hill on which Perugia stands, to the tomb of the
Volumnii, on the edge of the plain, and so on to Assisi and Foligno, in
the blue distance.

Half-way down he met Ferrier, ascending from the tomb. Sir James turned,
and they strolled back together. The Umbrian landscape girdling the
superb town showed itself unveiled. Every gash on the torn white sides
of the eastern Apennines, every tint of purple or porcelain-blue on the
nearer hills, every plane of the smiling valley as it wound southward,
lay bathed in a broad and searching light which yet was a light of
beauty--of infinite illusion.

"I must say I have enjoyed my life," said Ferrier, abruptly, as they
paused to look back, "though I don't put it altogether in the
first class!"

Sir James raised his eyebrows--smiled--and did not immediately reply.

"Chide, old fellow," Ferrier resumed, turning to him, "before I left
England I signed my will. Do you object that I have named you one of
the two executors?"

Sir James gave him a cordial glance.

"All right, I'll do my best--if need arises. I suppose, Johnnie, you're
a rich man?"

The name "Johnnie," very rarely heard between them, went back to early
days at the Bar, when Ferrier was for a time in the same chambers with
the young Irishman who, within three years of being called, was making a
large income; whereas Ferrier had very soon convinced himself that the
Bar was not for him, nor he for the Bar, and being a man of means had
"plumped" for politics.

"Yes, I'm not badly off," said Ferrier; "I'm almost the last of my
family; and a lot of money has found its way to me first and last. It's
been precious difficult to know what to do with it. If Oliver Marsham
had stuck to that delightful girl I should have left it to him."

Sir James made a growling sound, more expressive than articulate.

"As it is," Ferrier resumed, "I have left half of it to my old Oxford
college, and half to the University."

Chide nodded. Presently a slight flush rose in his very clear
complexion, and he looked round on his companion with sparkling eyes.