‘Come, will you?’ said Fulvia, looking back for a second towards Minna, whose heart beat uncomfortably fast as the recollection came rushing over her of the agony, the fainting, the despair she had witnessed five years ago; of the exceeding bitter cry which had gone forth from the girl Fulvia Dietrich, before she had, all shivering with terror, but strung up to the last pitch of self-abnegation, left her mother’s room to become Fulvia Marchmont. The scene would not go out of Minna’s mind, in spite of the woman she now saw before her--well, strong, and full of life, and most certainly not crushed, visibly at any rate. She followed, as she had been bidden to do. Fulvia walked straight up to where, with its head towards a large, pleasantly-shaded window, stood a luxurious invalid’s couch. It was broad and soft, padded, with the most cunning contrivances for giving ease to limbs tired or diseased. Over it was spread a quilted silken coverlet of some gorgeous Eastern pattern. Under this coverlet was, presumably, a human figure, because at the head of the couch there was a snowy white pillow, adorned with lace frills and ruchings; and on the pillow reclined a head. The head must, in the nature of things, be connected with limbs, but so small and shrivelled and shrunken were those limbs that no outline of them was to be seen under the billowy-looking cover. The face, which was turned in their direction as they came in, was such a strange, distorted, withered-looking little countenance as Minna did not remember ever to have seen before. The mouth was drawn down at one side in a ridiculously grotesque way. One eyelid had drooped, and would not be raised. The eye that still possessed its power looked eagerly and suspiciously at them, with the glance which Minna remembered so well--sharp, mistrustful and restless. The rest of the face she would hardly have recognised. It was that of a premature septuagenarian--of a septuagenarian who suffered, and whose sufferings had wrought no good, or nobility, or sweetness in his nature, which, in fact, had been ruined and rotten, and hopelessly warped, or ever the sufferings had begun. ‘Good-morning!’ said Fulvia, in a clear, cool voice as she walked towards him. ‘Good-morning, my dear, good-morning. I thought you were never coming.’ He feebly stretched out his skinny little left hand, and held it towards her without paying any attention to her visitor. She just touched the hand with the tips of her fingers, and then, turning, said: ‘Here is Mrs. Hastings. You remember her at Rome. She was very kind to me, and she did a bust of me--do you remember? She has been having lunch with me.’ The grotesque head made a grotesque kind of inclination on hearing these words. Minna was forced herself to come forward and say: ‘I am sorry you are so much out of health.’