s more independent of temperament, and the wisest
of women could hardly have suffered more.

As for Gino, he was quite as boyish as ever, and carried his iniquities
like a feather. A favourite speech of his was, "Ah, one ought to marry!
Spiridione is wrong; I must persuade him. Not till marriage does one
realize the pleasures and the possibilities of life." So saying, he
would take down his felt hat, strike it in the right place as infallibly
as a German strikes his in the wrong place, and leave her.

One evening, when he had gone out thus, Lilia could stand it no longer.
It was September. Sawston would be just filling up after the summer
holidays. People would be running in and out of each other's houses
all along the road. There were bicycle gymkhanas, and on the 30th Mrs.
Herriton would be holding the annual bazaar in her garden for the C.M.S.
It seemed impossible that such a free, happy life could exist. She
walked out on to the loggia. Moonlight and stars in a soft purple sky.
The walls of Monteriano should be glorious on such a night as this. But
the house faced away from them.

Perfetta was banging in the kitchen, and the stairs down led past the
kitchen door. But the stairs up to the attic--the stairs no one ever
used--opened out of the living-room, and by unlocking the door at the
top one might slip out to the square terrace above the house, and thus
for ten minutes walk in freedom and peace.

The key was in the pocket of Gino's best suit--the English check--which
he never wore. The stairs creaked and the key-hole screamed; but
Perfetta was growing deaf. The walls were beautiful, but as they faced
west they were in shadow. To see the light upon them she must walk round
the town a little, till they were caught by the beams of the rising
moon. She looked anxiously at the house, and started.

It was easy walking, for a little path ran all outside the ramparts.
The few people she met wished her a civil good-night, taking her, in her
hatless condition, for a peasant. The walls trended round towards the
moon; and presently she came into its light, and saw all the rough
towers turn into pillars of silver and black, and the ramparts
into cliffs of pearl. She had no great sense of beauty, but she was
sentimental, and she began to cry; for here, where a great cypress
interrupted the monotony of the girdle of olives, she had sat with Gino
one afternoon in March, her head upon his shoulder, while Caroline was
looking