Trent came forward once more, and though his voice shook it had regained its old softness:-- "Bice!" She turned away her head. "I spoke hastily. Say one word." She remained silent, and Ibbetson turned sharply round. "You had better go," he said, in a low voice. "Why?" asked Trent, eyeing him sullenly,-- "I should think you could answer the question for yourself; perhaps before you find yourself kicked out." "Well, that spectacle is hardly pleasant for you or for me," said Oliver, pointing to Moroni, who stood close to Bice as if he were her champion; "and so I leave you with greater satisfaction than might have been the case. But you have not heard the last of me, Mr Ibbetson." He walked out of the room slowly, and except, perhaps, for the pallor of his face, no one would have guessed that he was a disgraced and disappointed man. There was a moment's silence between them all when he had lifted the curtain and passed out, nothing breaking it except the patter of the rain on the stones of the courtyard, the click-click of old Brigitta's needles, and the distant clang of some church bell. Moroni clenched his hands, and muttered something under his breath. Jack stood looking after Trent, uncertain what to do himself, whether to go or stay. He was roused from his thoughts by Bice's voice:-- "Is he gone?" "Yes; he is gone," said Jack, coming back, and speaking gravely. "I'm afraid this has been a very trying interview for you. Perhaps I ought to have managed that you should have been spared. And yet--" "No, no," she said faintly. "You have nothing to reproach yourself with. It was better that it should have been like this; it was necessary. And you must not think that it is the sort of grief you would perhaps expect--is it very wicked to feel as I do, as if a burden were lifted off my life? Because I do feel it already in spite of his threats." "I am sure I don't wonder," said Ibbetson kindly, "I only wonder--" "That I ever promised to many him? Phillis would never have done so, I know, but then--I am not so brave as Phillis. And I always believed he was very good to Clive, and then he persuaded me that what he had done had been misrepresented, and I thought it was from something I had said; and so--" "Signorina, do not shut me out any longer, talk in our own language," said young Moroni impatiently. The girl smiled; a sad little smile it was. "Poor Giovanni, whether you hear little or much, you believe always that I am right, don't you?" "_Altro_, I know it, signorina!" She looked wistfully at him for a moment. Then she put out a hand to him and to Jack, with a simple confiding impulse which touched them both. "Good-bye, dear friends," she said softly in Italian, "try always to think as kindly." As the heavy curtain fell behind her, Moroni turned impetuously to Ibbetson. "Now, signore," he said, "I must hear more." "Wait a moment," said Jack. "Is it because you love her?"