"I have not deserved _that_," she said vehemently. No, indeed. In this great crash of hope of happiness which she had brought about, Hetherton might go without so much as a thought. It was a hundred times more to Ibbetson, who salved the soreness of his independence with the idea that he was indifferent, but who could scarcely enter into the trouble, his words had caused her. Had he, then, thought so meanly of her as to suppose that Hetherton had weighed? Oh, well that she had spoken, at whatever cost of pain! She began to walk away quickly through the rooms, and he, who had been startled out of another misconception, followed, feeling himself awkwardly placed as he did so. He kept close behind, but did not join her until they were near the bottom of the great staircase, and then she had recovered her composure, and made some indifferent remark about asking for letters at the post-office opposite. If you wish to change a conversation in Florence, there are plenty of sights and sounds which will effect your purpose. They chose a packet of the little photographs which are spread out under the arcades, turned as usual to look at the flower-like tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, and stared in at the windows of the mosaic workers. When they reached the Old Bridge a soldier's funeral was crossing it, and the people crowding. The regiment marched, the sun shone out for a moment on flashing steel and on young grave faces; behind came a group of the black and hooded Brothers of Mercy carrying lighted torches. They were all walking quickly, and the Old Bridge formed a strange mediaeval framework to the procession. Ibbetson and Phillis dreaded silence too much not to make valiant efforts to avoid it all the way home by the Lung' Arno. It seemed to her that her forces were expended, and he was thinking uneasily of what she had said. His good things had dropped so readily upon him all his life long, that although she did not know it, nothing stimulated him like difficulty, and she had already gained a new value in his eyes, and moved him to a greater appreciation. But he was also annoyed and a little ashamed. Did she really mean that she was rejecting him? When they reached Casa Giulia he paused at the door. "Phillis," he said in a low voice, "you said more than you meant just now, didn't you?" She might have answered that it had cost her too much to say what she did to allow of her falling into such an error, and the pleading which he put into his voice made this appeal a fresh anguish. But she steadied herself to answer quietly-- "I mean it all. Indeed, it is best." "If you will not consent to our marriage taking place as soon as was intended, you don't at all events wish that everything should be at an end between us?" "Are things ever at an end in this world?" she said, with a sad little smile. "But I do wish that all should be at an end so far that you-- that we should be absolutely free."