Still time flew by relentlessly. It wanted now only two days to the date fixed for her departure. She had been at the studio all one afternoon, superintending the packing of the bust of Fulvia, which, heavy though it was, she had determined to take with her own personal luggage, and also that of the as yet unfinished statue, which, packed and enveloped with the greatest care, was to go by sea to Liverpool, and thence to be despatched to her home. The carriers were to come to-morrow for the great package. She intended to return herself, see it off the premises, and pack up and put away the things she was leaving here, for she intended to retain the rooms for at least a year, against her possible return to Rome. The noise and the bustle were over. The men, satisfied with the _buona mano_ they had received, grinned from ear to ear, wished her a successful journey and said a cordial _a rivederci_. They clattered down the stairs and away, and when the last noise of their feet had died away, she got up and looked rather sorrowfully round the shabby room, now quite turned upside down, in which she had spent so many happy hours, and so many sad ones too. It was useless to linger. The place now sent a shudder through her. She would go away, to her lodging, and busy herself in beginning the packing necessary for her journey. It was a hot May evening, towards six o’clock. She put on her broad straw hat, took her gloves and sunshade from the table, and left the room, locking the door behind her. Slowly she descended the cool dark staircase, and went through the court, deep in shadow, towards the dazzling white light in the street. As she slowly paced along, her eye was caught by another shadow which flitted along, close to the wall--and crowning the shadow was a man’s white face. Some little thrill, some intuitive knowledge, darted through her veins and heart. She stopped suddenly and decidedly, arrested the shadow, and laid her hand upon its arm. ‘Signor Oriole--at last! Why have you treated me in this way?’ ‘Why have I treated myself in this way, you should rather ask,’ he said; ‘do you suppose that if I had had anything good to tell you I should not have been with you before now? My news was always bad; therefore, though I have many times been as far as this court, I have never mounted the stair.’ ‘Bad news--of Fulvia?’ she added, still instinctively holding him fast by the arm lest he should yet escape. ‘No, of myself,’ said he, with some naïveté, ‘though, of course, it would not matter about me if she were not concerned in it too.’ ‘Come upstairs,’ said Minna decidedly, as she turned back. ‘Come upstairs, and tell me everything about it.’