Bertha went to the Villa Medici and sat where she could watch the light glowing on the mellow façade of the old palace, and Syrinx peeping between the reeds: the students saw her and asked who was the beautiful woman who sat so long and so unconscious of the eyes that looked at her. She went to the Villa Doria-Pamphili, majestic and pompous, the fitting summer-house of princes in gorgeous clothes, of bishops and of cardinals. And the ruins of the Palatine with its cypress trees sent her thought back and back, and she pictured to herself the glory of bygone power. But the wildest garden of all, the garden of the Mattei, pleased her best. Here were a greater fertility and a greater abandonment; the distance and the difficulty of access kept strangers away, and Bertha could wander through it as if it were her own. She thought she had never enjoyed such exquisite moments as were given her by its solitude and its silence. Sometimes a troop of scarlet seminarists sauntered along the grass-grown avenues, vivid colour against the verdure. Then she went home, tired and happy, and sat at her open window and watched the dying sun. The sun set over St. Peter’s, and the mighty cathedral was transfigured into a temple of fire and gold; the dome was radiant, formed no longer of solid stones, but of light and sunshine--it was the crown of a palace of Hyperion. Then, as the sun fell to the horizon, St. Peter’s stood out in darkness, stood out in majestic profile against the splendour of heaven. Chapter XXVIII But after Easter Miss Ley proposed that they should travel slowly back to England. Bertha had dreaded the suggestion, not only because she regretted to leave Rome, but still more because it rendered necessary some explanation. The winter had passed comfortably enough with the excuse of indifferent health, but now some other reason must be found to account for the continued absence from her husband’s side; and Bertha’s racked imagination gave her nothing. She was determined, however, under no circumstances, to return to Court Leys: after such happy freedom the confinement of body and soul would be doubly intolerable. Edward had been satisfied with the pretext and had let Bertha go without a word. As he said, he was not the man to stand in his wife’s way when her health required her to leave him; and he could peg along all right by himself. Their letters had been fairly frequent, but on Bertha’s side a constant effort. She was always telling herself that the only rational course was to make Edward a final statement of her intentions, and then break off all communication. But the dread of fuss and bother, and of endless explanation, restrained her; and she compromised by writing as seldom as possible and adhering to the merest trivialities. She was surprised once or twice, when she had delayed her answer, to receive from him a second letter, asking with some show of anxiety why she did not write.