"I must have time for considering it, and I don't want Oliver to guess that we have been talking: if you will go straight along this path you will come to a door in the wall by which you can get into the road. Do not be vexed with me for sending you away." "One word--how is your hand?" "Oh, almost well." "And when shall I see you again?" "When you like to come," said Bice smiling; "or, perhaps, to-morrow in Florence. We shall be there, as I said, for the service." "Then will you come afterwards to luncheon at my aunt's--Casa Giulia? She is longing to make your acquaintance, and I shall feel sure you have forgiven me." "Oh, I have forgiven you," said Bice, after a pause, "Well, we will come--" CHAPTER SIX. CARTOUCHE INTERRUPTS. When Ibbetson had left her, Bice hastened to that part of the wall where was the niche to which she was carrying the flowers. A little terrace ran along by means of which she could reach and open the grating, and take out the vase with its withered blossoms. She carried it to a small fountain close by, filled it with clear water, and put in her flaming lilies. Then she took it back to the niche, closed the grating, came down from the terrace, and after a moment's consideration walked slowly towards the place where she had heard the voices. Kitty and Mr Trent were standing under a large acacia tree, and turned quickly round to greet her. Kitty poured out her questions--Where had she been? what had she been doing? did she know they had been looking for her? "Mamma told me," said Bice carelessly; "surely you two might have amused each other for an hour. And it would not have required any superhuman sagacity, Kitty, to guess that I had gone for the flowers." "If you are cross, I shall go to the terrace and leave Oliver to his fate," said Kitty, laughing and escaping. The two who were left looked at each other as she ran off--he with open admiration, she with a tremulous quiver of her lips not lost upon him. Oliver Trent was a man of about five and thirty, tall and thin, with dead, dusty-coloured hair; his features were not ill-looking, but, as Bice had remarked, hard in their lines, and he spoke with a slow sweetness curiously out of keeping with his face. He now slowly repeated-- "To my fate. I wonder if Kitty quite understood what happy prognostications lay in her words? Yes, this is the fate I have been looking forward to all these weary weeks; and I began to think, Bice, that you delighted in cruelty, or else had learned the woman's art of tantalising. Come and sit here in the shade." She followed him more readily than he, perhaps, expected, for he half-suspected that she was bent upon avoiding a _tete-a-tete_; but in actual truth she had scarcely heard his words, or at any rate had not taken in their meaning. Another thought possessed her. As they sat down she turned and looked steadily into his face. "What is Clive's exact position?" she said sharply.