rd Peterborough and his
wife insisted that the marriage should take place at Monkhams. "We
shall be home now in less than three weeks," said Caroline, "and she
must come to us at once. But I will write to her from Florence, and
tell her how we saw you smoking your pipe under the archway. Not that
my husband knew you in the least."

"Upon my word no," said the husband,--"one didn't expect to find you
here. Good-bye. I hope you may succeed in getting him home. I went
to him once, but could do very little." Then the train started, and
Stanbury went back to Mrs. Trevelyan.

On the next day Stanbury went out to Casalunga alone. He had
calculated, on leaving England, that if any good might be done
at Siena it could be done in three days, and that he would have
been able to start on his return on the Wednesday morning,--or on
Wednesday evening at the latest. But now there did not seem to be any
chance of that;--and he hardly knew how to guess when he might get
away. He had sent a telegram to Lady Rowley after his first visit,
in which he had simply said that things were not at all changed at
Casalunga, and he had written to Nora each day since his arrival. His
stay was prolonged at great expense and inconvenience to himself;
and yet it was impossible that he should go and leave his work half
finished. As he walked up the hill to the house he felt very angry
with Trevelyan, and prepared himself to use hard words and dreadful
threats. But at the very moment of his entrance on the terrace,
Trevelyan professed himself ready to go to England. "That's right,
old fellow," said Hugh. "I am so glad." But in expressing his joy he
had hardly noticed Trevelyan's voice and appearance.

"I might as well go," he said. "It matters little where I am, or
whether they say that I am mad or sane."

"When we have you over there, nobody shall say a word that is
disagreeable."

"I only hope that you may not have the trouble of burying me on the
road. You don't know, Stanbury, how ill I am. I cannot eat. If I
were at the bottom of that hill, I could no more walk up it than I
could fly. I cannot sleep, and at night my bed is wet through with
perspiration. I can remember nothing,--nothing but what I ought to
forget."

"We'll put you on to your legs again when we get you to your own
climate."

"I shall be a poor traveller,--a poor traveller; but I will do my
best."

When would he start? That was the next question. Trevelyan asked for
a week,