"There is nothing in the world less likely," cries Byng feverishly, irritated at not having drawn forth the reassurance he had hoped for. "I do not for a moment believe that they have gone home; I feel convinced that they are still in Italy! Why should they leave it, when they--when she is so fond of it?" Jim looks down sadly at the calm, strong stream. "I do not know, I cannot give an opinion--I have no clue." "I will ask again in about an hour," says Byng, lifting his arms from the parapet, "in an hour it is pretty certain to have arrived; and meanwhile, I thought I would just stroll about the town, but there is no reason--none at all--why I should keep you! You--you must be wanting to go back to Amelia." He glances at his friend in a nervous, sidelong way, as he makes this suggestion. "I am not going back again to-night," replies Jim quietly, without giving any evidence of an intention to acquiesce in his dismissal. "There is nothing that I can do for her--there is nothing to be done." His tone, in making this statement, must be yet more dreary than he is aware, as it arouses even Byng's self-absorbed attention. "Nothing to be done for her?" he echoes, with a shocked look. "My dear old chap, you do not mean to say--to imply--" "I mean to imply nothing," interrupts Jim sharply, in a superstitious panic of hearing some unfavourable augury as to his betrothed put into words. "I mean just what I say--neither more nor less; there is nothing to be done for her to-night, nothing but to let her sleep--a good sleep will set her up: of course a good sleep will quite set her up." He speaks almost angrily, as if expecting and challenging contradiction. But Byng's spirit has already flown back to his own woes. He may make what sanguine statements he pleases about Amelia's to-morrow, without fearing any demurrer from his companion. What attention the latter has to spare is evidently only directed to the solving of the problem, how best, with amicable civility, to be rid of him. Before he can hit upon any expedient for attaining this desired end, Burgoyne speaks again, his eye resting with a compassionate expression upon his junior's face, whose wild pallor is heightened by the disorder of his hair, and the hat crushed down over his brows. "You have not had anything to eat all day--had not you better come back to the hotel and get something to eat?" "Eat!" cries the other, with almost a scream; "you must have very little comprehension of----" Then, checking himself and with a strong and palpable effort for composure: "It would not be worth while, I should not have time; in an hour--less than an hour now, for I must have been here quite ten minutes at the least--I have to return to the Piazza d'Azeglio." "Then go to Doney's; why not get something to eat at Doney's? It will not take you five minutes to reach the Via Tornabuoni."