Still without any explanation having been made, they left London on the following morning. Now that she had rested, and looked strong and steady, if pale and unspeakably sad, he was ready to agree to her request that they should only break the journey once before getting to Naples--at Milan. She never swerved from this resolution, and they were, as it seemed, very soon far away from England, had traversed France, had travelled through the snows of Switzerland, all crowded with tourists of every description, had at last reached the southern side of the Alps, and heard their own tongue again. As the heat grew greater, the number of English and American excursionists diminished. The burning plain of Lombardy was behind them, and on a still, breathless, sultry evening they entered the great desolate space of the Milan station, coldly orderly under a glare of electric light. * * * * * It was after they had dined that evening, and had left the coffee-room and were seated in Fulvia’s room, with windows open to let in any stray breath of air which might be wandering about, that she said to him deliberately: ‘Padre mio, I am going to tell you about it. I could not speak before, and I do not wish to speak now, but still less do I wish to have to speak after we have got home. Let us leave all this behind us, and begin everything afresh.’ ‘Yes, child, it will be much the best if you can tell me about it now,’ ‘It was thus, then. You know the kind of life which for five years I had led and had made no sign--no outward sign, that is. I thought I was so strong. I began to pride myself upon it, and to feel a brutal gladness in it, as if I were above and outside the world of other people and might despise them. I did despise a great many of them, women especially, whom I used to hear loudly mourning and lamenting because they had not got everything they wanted, not because they were like me, without anything I wanted, and forced to live a life I hated. I used to wonder how they would conduct themselves if they were really tried. I believed that I had been so tried that there was nothing in the world to move me, or tempt me, or make me waver from the path on which I was walking. Then----’ ‘Then Riemann came and made love to you,’ he interrupted her. ‘Well?’