“Signora,” she said nervously, “here is a little letter--it is doubtless from the Signore. He is perhaps detained--hospitable friends have kept him--” Rose held out her hand for the letter. The Pinsents never made fusses. They didn’t believe in bad things happening, and when they happened they tried to look as if they weren’t bad. This was the way Rose looked now. She smiled pleasantly at the Padrona, and moved slowly away towards her room with the letter. She would not hurry. The Padrona gazed compassionately after her. “She is walking over a precipice,” said the Padrona to herself, “as if it were a path in our garden, Poverina!” It was a very short letter. “My dear,” Léon wrote in French, “I find I must go to Naples. It will not be for long I leave you, and I have told them all to look after you until my return. Forgive me. Léon.” After all he could not lie to Rose. She read his letter three times. The first two times she translated his letter into English, and wondered why Léon had gone to Naples. The third time she read it without translating it, and then she knew everything. She knew everything in all the world. But she could not quite believe it. The arrogance in her rose up and fought against the truth. Rose had very little arrogance, but all women who have been loved must have some. Surely he who was so much her lover could not have left her so soon? She remembered that when she had said to her mother, “But I could never leave Léon,” Mrs. Pinsent had made no direct response. Her mother had realized that that wasn’t the only question. How had she realized this? Had her father ever--? Rose buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly. “Oh, poor mother!” she murmured, “poor mother!” She could not see herself as wholly poor yet. And then she remembered Léon’s face as he passed her, his sad, ashamed face, and she knew now why he had left her; but that he did not want to leave her. She sat up very straight and stopped crying when she realized this. She thought it very strange, for she knew quite well that Madame Gérard didn’t love Léon, either. She loved her own husband, Rose had seen this; she knew it as if it were in the multiplication table; but she couldn’t think of Madame Gérard now, she wasn’t her business. Léon was her business. She must understand, why he had done this thing. It wasn’t any use being silly and just crying, then it might happen again, and it should never happen again; she wasn’t going to have Léon looking ashamed twice. From the first what wrung her heart was that Léon would feel it so! He had meant to be such a help, he nearly had been, and if he hadn’t been wasn’t it because Rose had failed him? She hadn’t meant to fail him of course, she had meant just the opposite; but that was before she knew all about everything, and before you know how to mean, meaning isn’t going to be much of a help.