The _Vendetta_ was at Civita Vecchia, from which port her skipper frequently bore down upon Rome, distracting Allegra from her critical studies in the picture-galleries, and from her work in her own studio, a light, airy room on the fourth floor, with a window looking over the Pincian Gardens. Captain Hulbert was a little inclined to resent Father Rodwell’s frequent presence in the family circle, and his too accomplished guidance in the galleries. It was provoking to hear a man talk, with an almost Ruskinesque enthusiasm and critical appreciation, of pictures which made so faint an appeal to the seaman. Here and there John Hulbert could see the beauty and merit of a painting, and was really touched by the influence of supreme art; but of technical qualities he knew nothing, and could hardly distinguish one master from another, was as likely as not to take Titian for Veronese, or Tintoret for Titian. He looked with a sceptical eye at the Anglican priest’s cassock and girdle. If Father Rodwell had been a Papist it would have been altogether a more satisfactory state of things; but an Anglican--a man who might preach the beauty of holy poverty and a celibate life one year and marry a rich widow the year after--a man bound only by his own wishes. Had Allegra been a thought less frank--had she been a woman whom it was possible to doubt--the sailor would have given himself over to the demon of jealousy; but there are happily some women in whom truth and purity are so transparently obvious that even an anxious lover cannot doubt them. Allegra was such an one. No suspicion of coquetry ever lessened her simple womanliness. She was a woman of whom a man might make a friend; a woman whose feelings and meanings he could by no possibility mistake. He had pleaded his hardest and pleaded in vain for a June wedding. Isola’s state of health was too critical for the contemplation of any change in the family circle. “She could not do without me, nor could Martin either,” Allegra told her lover. “It is I who keep house and manage their money, and see to everything for them. Martin has been utterly helpless since this saddening anxiety began. He thinks of nothing but Isola, and her chances of recovery. I cannot leave him while she is so ill.” “Have you any hope of her ever being better, my dear girl?” “I don’t know. It has been a long and wearing illness.” “It is not illness, Allegra. It is a gradual decay. My fear is that she will never revive. There is no marked disease--nothing for medicine to fight against. Such cases as hers are the despair of doctors. A spring has been broken somehow in the human machine. Science cannot mend it.” Allegra was very much of her sweetheart’s opinion.