Paolina was industriously pursuing her task in the chapel of the Cardinal's palace. Ludovico was not so frequently with her there as he had been while she was at work in San Vitale. But there were evident reasons why this was necessarily the case. The chapel in question is a private one, and is accessible only by passing through a portion of the Cardinal's residence. At San Vitale Ludovico needed to take nobody into his confidence, when he climbed to Paolina's scaffolding to be by her side while she worked, save the old sacristan. But to have joined her at her work in the Cardinal's palace, he must have knocked at the door of the residence, and told the servants what he wanted. And that would have been obviously inconvenient, even without mentioning the fact that the Lady Violante, to whom the gentleman ought to have been addressing himself, passed much of her time at the palace, and might very possibly have been met by him there. It was true that, ever since the ball at the Castelmare palazzo, on the second day of the year, Ludovico had felt pretty nearly sure that Violante was as desirous of escaping from the marriage which had been arranged as he was himself. But it did not at all follow that it would be an easy matter to break it off. Of course it was not to be expected that Violante herself could take any active step towards refusing to fulfil the promise that her family had made for her. That would be for him to do. And except as regarded his intercourse with the lady, and her personal feelings, the task of doing so was hardly rendered any the easier by the knowledge that he would be consulting her wishes as well as his own. It would hardly, therefore, have done in any way for him to have been visiting the young artist in the Cardinal Legate's chapel. The intercourse, however, between Ludovico and Paolina was much pleasanter and more unrestrained than it had been before that explanation, which had ensued between them. He was a frequent visitor at the house in the Via di Sta. Eufemia in the evening; and the happy hours were passed by them on the perfectly understood footing of mutual betrothal.