It was the last morning, a lovely morning. Sunshine was flooding the great rooms, and making even the tapestried walls look gay. Susan, for once in her life, came down to breakfast, in a black satin _négligé_, with a valenciennes cap that made her look enchanting. "I wanted to see Claude in pink--Roman pink," she said, looking at the slim, tall figure in Leicestershire clothes. "You ought always to wear those clothes," said Susie, clapping her hands, as at the reception of a favourite actor. "They make you bewilderingly beautiful. Now I know why you are so keen on hunting." "Do you think any man cares how his coat is cut, or who made his boots, when he may be dead at the bottom of a ditch before the end of the run?" Claude said, laughing. "Some of the best days I have had have been in rat-catcher clothes." He was radiant with pleasant expectations. He could do without Leicestershire hedges, and hundred-acre fields, and all the perfection of English fox-hunting. To-day the Campagna would be good enough--with its rough ground and yawning chasms, wider and deeper than the worst of the Somersetshire rhines. The Campagna would be good enough. He was in high spirits, and he was singing a wicked little French song as his man buckled on his spurs, a little song that Gavroche and his companions of the Paris gutters had been singing all the winter. * * * * * Lady Susan drove to the meet in one of the Provana carriages, picking up a couple of lively American friends on her way. Vera excused herself from going with her friend, and went off for a ramble with the Irish terrier, much to Susie's disgust. "You like that rough-haired beast's company better than mine," she complained. "Only when I want to be alone with memories and dreams." "You are growing too horridly morbid, Vera. I am afraid you have taken up religion. It's very sweet of you, darling, but it's the way to lose your husband. Religion is the one thing a husband won't put up with. He hates it worse than a bad cook." "No, I have not taken up religion." "Then it's spiritualism, which is just as bad. It is all Mr. Symeon's doing. You live in a world of ghosts." "There are ghosts that one loves. But there will be no ghosts where I shall be walking to-day. Only wild flowers and spring sunshine." She watched Susan take her seat in the carriage--a vision of coquettish prettiness and expensive clothes. Susan's husband had gone back to London and Newmarket some time since, not being able to "stick" Rome after the Craven meeting. He had enjoyed some good runs with the Roman pack, and he had been shown St. Peter's and the Colosseum, and had played bridge with famous American players at Claude Rutherford's club; so what more was there for him to do?