ery
suddenly, without so much as letting Corbario guess that they were going
away; and Regina had managed to keep Settimia so very busy and so
constantly under her eye that the maid had not been able to send Folco a
word, warning him of the anticipated move. Almost for the first time
Marcello had made up his mind for himself, and had acted upon his
decision; and it seemed as if the exercise of his will had made a change
in his character.

They wandered from place to place; they went to Venice in the hottest
season, when no one was there, and they came down to Florence and drove
up to Vallombrosa, where they stumbled upon society, and were stared at
accordingly. They went down to Siena, they stopped in Orvieto, and drove
across to Assisi and Perugia; but they were perpetually drawn towards
Rome, and knew that they longed to be there again.

Marcello had plenty of time to think, and there was little to disturb
his meditations on the past and future; for Regina was not talkative,
and was content to be silent for hours, provided that she could see his
face. He never knew whether she felt her ignorance about all they saw,
and his own knowledge was by no means great. He told her what he knew
and read about places they visited, and she remembered what he said, and
sometimes asked simple questions which he could answer easily enough.
For instance, she wished to know whether America were a city or an
island, and who the Jews were, and if the sun rose in the west on the
other side of the world, since Marcello assured her that the world was
round.

He was neither shocked nor amused; Ercole had asked him similar
questions when he had been a boy; so had the peasants in Calabria, and
there was no reason why Regina should know more than they did. Besides,
she possessed wonderful tact, and now spoke her own language so well
that she could pass for a person of average education, so long as she
avoided speaking of anything that is learned from books. She was very
quick to understand everything connected with the people she heard of,
and she never forgot anything that Marcello told her. She was grateful
to him for never laughing at her, but in reality he was indifferent. If
she had known everything within bounds of knowledge, she would not have
been a whit more beautiful, or more loving, or more womanly.

But he himself was beginning to think, now that his faith in Folco had
been shaken, and he began to realise that he had been strang