efore the door of the little apartment. He realised that he
had no key to it, and that he must ring the bell as if he were a mere
visitor. It was strange that such a little thing should affect him at
all, but he was conscious of a sort of chill, as he pulled the metal
handle and heard the tinkling of one of those cheap little bells that
feebly imitate their electric betters by means of a rachet and a small
weighted wheel. It was all so different from the little house in
Trastevere with its bright varnished doors, its patent locks, its smart
windows, and its lovely old garden. He wished he had not brought Regina
to Via Sicilia, though Kalmon's advice had seemed so good. To Kalmon,
who was used to no great luxury in his own life, the place doubtless
seemed very well suited for a young person like Regina, who had been
brought up a poor child in the hills. But the mere anticipation of the
dark and narrow entry, and the sordid little sitting-room beyond, awoke
in Marcello a sense of shame, whether for himself or for the woman who
loved him he hardly knew.

Old Teresa had gone out for something, and Regina opened the door
herself.

CHAPTER XX

"I have come to see if you need anything," Marcello said, when they were
in the sitting-room. "I am sorry to have been obliged to bring you to
such a wretched place, but it seemed a good thing that you should be so
near Kalmon."

"It is not a wretched place," Regina answered. "It is clean, and the
things are new, and the curtains have been washed. It is not wretched.
We have been in worse lodgings when we have travelled and stopped in
small towns. Professor Kalmon has been very kind. It was wise to bring
me here."

He wished she had seemed discontented.

"Have you rested a little?" he asked.

"I have slept two or three hours. And you? You look tired."

"I have had no time to sleep. I shall sleep to-night."

He leaned back in the small green arm-chair and rested his head against
a coarse netted antimacassar. His eyes caught Regina's, but she was
looking down thoughtfully at her hands, which lay in her lap together
but not clasped. Peasant women often do that; their hands are resting
then, after hard work, and they are thinking of nothing.

"Look at me," Marcello said after a long time.

Her glance was sad and almost dull, and there was no light in her face.
She had made up her mind that something dreadful was going to happen to
her, and that the end was coming soon.