He had spent both heart and thought upon her case; and at the root of his relation to her, a deep and painful pity was easily to be divined.
Vast as the villa-apartment was, the rooms were all on one floor, and the doors fitted badly.

Lucy's sleep was haunted for long by a distant sound of voices, generally low and restrained, but at moments rising and sharpening as though their owners forgot the hour and the night.

In the morning it seemed to her that she had been last conscious of a burst of weeping, far distant--then of a sudden silence ...
* * * * * The following day, Lucy in Benson's charge paid her duty to the Sophocles of the Lateran Museum, and, armed with certain books lent her by Manisty, went wandering among the art and inscriptions of Christian Rome.

She came home, inexplicably tired, through a glorious Campagna, splashed with poppies, embroidered with marigold and vetch; she climbed the Alban slopes from the heat below, and rejoiced in the keener air of the hills, and the freshness of the _ponente_, as she drove from the station to the villa.
Mrs.Burgoyne was leaning over the balcony looking out for her.

Lucy ran up to her, astonished at her own eagerness of foot, at the breath of home which seemed to issue from the great sun-beaten house.
Eleanor looked pale and tired, but she took the girl's hand kindly.
'Oh! you must keep all your gossip for dinner!' said Eleanor, as they greeted.