Before reaching the door she turned away and stood gazing at an old picture, indistinguishable with blackness, over an altar.

At last they passed out into the court.
Glancing at her in the open air, Rowland was startled; he imagined he saw the traces of hastily suppressed tears.

They had lost time, she said, and they must hurry; she sent Assunta to look for a fiacre.

She remained silent a while, scratching the ground with the point of her parasol, and then at last, looking up, she thanked Rowland for his confidence in her "reasonableness." "It 's really very comfortable to be asked, to be expected, to do something good, after all the horrid things one has been used to doing--instructed, commanded, forced to do! I 'll think over what you have said to me." In that deserted quarter fiacres are rare, and there was some delay in Assunta's procuring one.

Christina talked of the church, of the picturesque old court, of that strange, decaying corner of Rome.