Regina started. The sun had gone down, clear in a clear sky, scarce tinted by faint green and rose; an ashen light, gently sad-coloured, fell over the picture. Regina rose docilely and followed the big woman whose bronze countenance was framed by the aureole of a wet-nurse's head-dress. They walked and walked. Caterina slept on the nurse's powerful shoulder, and the ashy-rose twilight threw its haze over Via Sistina. The portly nurse swayed as she moved like a laden bark. Regina, slender and rustling as a young poplar, followed automatically as if towed by the big woman. When the latter stopped--and she stopped before all the shop windows which showed necklaces and rings--Regina also stopped, her looks veiled and vague. The long torment of excitement had been succeeded by indefinable torpor. She was walking in a dream. Years and years must have rolled by since she had passed along Via San Lorenzo following the bird-seller. Of all her emotions, now only a vague sadness remained. She seemed no longer in doubt, but finally convinced of the monstrous folly of her suspicion. Only she was unable to recover her accustomed serenity. Three lame musicians, standing before a gloomy house, sobbed out of their old instruments a lament of supreme melancholy. The pavement was crowded with elderly foreign ladies in hats of impossible ugliness. From every cross-street sounded the warnings of motors. Regina, being short-sighted, was always afraid of the motors, especially in the twilight, when the last light of day was confused in perilous dazzle with the uncertain brightness of the lamps. To-night she was more nervous than usual. She felt as if monsters were rampant through the city, howling to announce their passage. Some fine day one of these monsters would overwhelm her and the baby and the portly nurse, grinding them like grains of barley. In Piazza Barberini, an old gentleman, stooping slightly, and wearing an overcoat of forgotten fashion buttoned up tightly though the evening was almost hot, passed close to Regina. She recognised the Senator, Arduina's relation, and turned to speak to him; but his ironical though kindly eyes were looking straight before him, and he saw no one. She had met him several times--once he had even come to visit her--and each time he had talked about England and the English laws, and the English women, repeating the refrain of his old song--"Work, work, work! That is the secret of a good life." Regina had ended by finding him tiresome, like any other old monomaniac. One could get along very well, even without work; of course one could! But to-night she watched the small, bent figure tripping along, melting into the misty distance of the street, and she thought it even more ridiculous than usual. Nevertheless, it seemed to her that this little gnome-like figure had appeared, as in a fable, to point the moral of her unhappy history.