"Do I not? And I mean to win her. He is dismissed, is he not? Let me hear it all, I beseech you, I burn with impatience. I will walk back with you, and then I shall hasten to her mother. What is this about the money? Shall I not call out that Trent?" CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. WHICH WILL SUCCEED? Moroni did not call out Trent but took some other measures which were vigorous and a good deal more sensible. But it was a proof of curious and dogged perseverance in the man, that, although baffled, Trent did not give up all hope. He had played a desperate game, in which he told himself--and truly enough, as far as it went--that he had been led on from risk to risk, and so far as his wrong-doing had been a mistake, he bitterly regretted it. Bitterly, for his love for Bice was an absorbing passion, and he would not yet suffer himself to own that she was lost for ever. His hope lay in Mrs Masters. First and last he had lent her a good deal of money, looking to it as another means of gaining a power over the girl. For he measured Bice's strength and weakness accurately, knowing that she would resist obstinately and, after all, give way in a moment if she could spare a tear to those she loved. Impulse, as yet, was almost paramount with her; what Trent was ignorant of, or forgot to take into account, was the effect produced upon her by the steady influence of such a life as that of Phillis, in which a higher law ruled. Trent lost no time. He knew that Mrs Masters had been teased by Kitty into taking her to the Capitol, and he at once followed them there. Everything looked grey and dreary, and unlike Rome; the pepper trees and mimosas by the Capitol steps hung dank, the poor wolf had slunk sullenly into his den, even the majestic and unmoved serenity of Marcus Aurelius, as the rain beat down upon him, dangerously approached the ridiculous. An old woman held out her hand, "_Un soldo, per pieta, signore, un soldo_." Trent flung her a dozen soldi, having a feeling that he could not afford to lose the blessing of a beggar. Mrs Masters and Kitty had gone to the side where the bronze wolf is preserved, and he was long in finding them. Mrs Masters--always provided with a camp-stool--was in her usual condition of repose, letting her daughter look about as she liked, so that nothing could have been more desirable for Trent. Any other woman might have noticed the unusual dull pallor of his face, as he leaned against a pedestal by her side, but observation was growing more and more an unknown exercise to her, and she made no more than her ordinary remarks about heat or cold and the like, when he joined her. He did not trouble himself to answer them, but said abruptly:-- "Have you any idea how much money I have let you have?" "Not much," she said placidly. It had seemed to her part of the arrangement to which belonged Bice's engagement, and she expected Trent to look upon it in the same light.