He knew something of the Contessa's past, but he recognised in her the nature that has known the world's worst side and has done with it for ever, and is lifted above it, and he knew the immense influence which the spectacle of a blameless life exercises upon the opinion of a good woman who has not always been blameless herself.

Whatever he had been before he met his wife, whatever strange plans had been maturing in his brain since he had married her, his life had seemed as spotless from that day as the existence of the best man living.

His wife believed in him, and the Contessa did not; but even she must in time accept the evidence of her senses.

Then she, too, would trust him.

Why it was essential that she should, he alone knew, unless he was merely piqued by her quiet reserve, as a child is when it cannot fix the attention of a grown-up person.
The Contessa and her daughter were to be of the party that day, and the carriage stopped where they lived, near the Forum of Trajan.