"My income," said John, all at once, brusquely coming to earth, "is exactly six hundred pounds a year. I suppose two people _could_ live on that, though I'm dashed if I see how. Of course we couldn't live in England, where that infernal future peerage would put us under a thousand obligations; but I dare say we might find a garret here in Italy. The question is, would she be willing, or have I any right to ask her, to marry me, on the condition of leaving her own money untouched, and living with me on mine? "Apropos of future peerages and things," said Maria Dolores, "do you happen to know whether she has any rank of her own to keep up?" "I don't care twopence about her rank," said John. "Do you happen to know her name?" she asked. "I know what I wish her name was," John promptly answered. "I wish to Heaven it was Blanchemain." Maria Dolores gazed, pensive, at the moon. "He does not even know her name," she remarked, on a key of meditation, "though he fears," she sadly shook her head, "he fears it may be Smitti." "Oh, I say!" cried John, wincing, with a kind of sorry giggle; and I don't know whether he looked or felt the more sheepish. His face showed every signal of humiliation, he tugged nervously at his beard, but his eyes, in spite of him, his very blue blue eyes were full of vexed amusement. The bell in the clock-tower struck eight. "There--it is your hour for going to Annunziata," said Maria Dolores. "You have not answered my question?" said John. "I will think about it," said she. IV Annunziata's delirium had passed, but in spite of all their efforts to persuade her not to talk, talk she would. "This is the month of May, isn't it?" she asked, next morning. "Yes, dear one," said Maria Dolores, whose watch it was. "And that is the month of Mary. San Luca ought to hurry up and make me well, so that I can keep flowers on the Lady Altar." "Then if you wish to get well quickly," said Maria Dolores, "you must try not to talk,--nor even to think, if you can help it. You know the doctor does not want you to talk." "All right. I won't talk. A going clock may be always wrong, but a stopped clock is right twice a day. So stop your tongue, and avoid folly. My uncle told me that. He never talks." "And now shall you and I imitate his example?" proposed Maria Dolores. Her lips, compressed, were plainly the gaolers of a laugh. "Yes," said Annunziata. "But I can't help thinking of those poor flowers. All May flowers are born to be put on the Lady Altar. Those poor flowers are missing what they were born for. They must be very sad." "This afternoon, every afternoon," Maria Dolores promised, "I will put flowers on the Lady Altar. Now see if you can't shut your eyes, and rest for a little while." "I once found a toad on the Lady Altar. What do you think he was there for?" asked Annunziata. "I can't think, I'm sure," said Maria Dolores.