Signor Giuseppe had not got as far as that, though he was well on the way to it. Minna, looking at him, understood it all; and an immense pity, an immense longing to help and save, came over her. There was a silence as they sat facing one another in the room, which was now very quiet. A ray of warm, rather stuffy sunshine had crept round to the window, and mercilessly lighted up all the rather shabby, threadbare details of the place. It left Minna in the shade, but fell upon her companion, and showed her the profound sadness and hopelessness of his expression. He had aged by twenty years. The man who, when she had first seen him, had struck her as barely beginning to be elderly, was now old. If no one helped him he would be lost. That was what she felt with a strength of pity and of conviction which swamped all other feelings. She broke the silence rather abruptly. ‘Do you see what a state of disorder the room is in?’ she asked. ‘I thought there was something different about it,’ he replied, looking round. ‘Are you going to make some alterations?’ ‘Oh no; I am only going to shut it up. I am leaving Rome the day after to-morrow,’ she replied, with studied carelessness. Her announcement had exactly the effect she had calculated upon. ‘Leaving Rome!’ he echoed, with a great start and look of blank dismay; and then, naïvely enough: ‘What is to become of me?’ ‘Oh, that is easily settled. I am going straight home to England--to my own house. You must come with me.’ ‘Impossible,’ ejaculated Signor Giuseppe, springing from his chair and looking very much agitated. ‘Signora, you speak with all the calm, deliberate frenzy peculiar to your nation. But you should not mock at my misfortunes.’ ‘I never was less inclined to mock in my life,’ said Minna, settling herself into the corner of the sofa, prepared to do battle for any length of time. ‘What I propose is the utmost common-sense, and is also the only thing to be done. To-night you go home and arrange your plans for getting ready to-morrow. To-morrow you employ in getting all that you want for the journey, and for a prolonged stay in our bleak country during its so-called summer. You must spend some of this money that you have got,’ she went on with the utmost tranquillity, trying hard not to smile at the almost paralyzed astonishment with which he continued to regard her. ‘It will be all right. The day afterwards you will be quite ready, with your luggage, and I shall call for you in good time’--with emphasis--‘on my way to the station. Three-forty is the time of the train. Don’t forget. We shall go to Milan, and rest there, and then pursue our way to England. I will write to-night to my housekeeper to say I am bringing someone with me, and that she is to have a room ready. There is really no more to be said.’ ‘But there is--a great deal,’ burst out Signor Giuseppe. ‘And it may all be expressed in one word: Impossible!’