He smiled and put his arm around her and she nestled back against it confidingly. Neither spoke again till they reached the house in the Via Serragli, but Egidio watched her obliquely out of those burning eyes of his, and his arm tingled where she leaned against it. He shifted his feet nervously once or twice and his breath came fast, but he gave no other sign of the emotion that possessed him. As they rattled over the Trinità bridge the full moon, reflected in the dark glancing waters below, shamed the yellow street lamps, and the houses towering above the Lung 'Arno Giucciardini glowed here and there with lights behind the barred windows. As the darkness of the narrowing street engulfed them, Ragna felt a vague uneasiness come over her--but was she not safe with her husband-friend? They drew up before the door of a _palazzo_, Egidio paid the driver, and opened the heavy _portone_ with a large iron key. They climbed to the first floor and at the sound of their approach a door on the landing opened disclosing Carolina silhouetted against the light within. "The Signora is tired," said Egidio, in a slightly hoarse voice, "she wants to go to bed at once, take the light!" Then to Ragna, "Come, carissima, this is your room." Carolina lit the way to a large bedroom, overlooking the street on one side and a garden on the other. It was furnished with a large old four-poster bed with canopy and valance, some armchairs, a table, a couch and a large writing desk. A screen hid the wash-stand, and Carolina had laid out Ragna's simple toilet necessaries on a monumental dressing table. A huge carved clothes-press stood against the wall. "It is a beautiful room," said Ragna, but she shivered. With the wavering shadows of Carolina's guttering candle, it seemed an abode of grotesque and horrible ghostly shapes, a gloomy cavern haunted by kobolds and evil spirits. "I am glad you like it," said Egidio gratified. "Good-night, _mogliettina_, sleep well." He kissed her on the forehead without bending, she was nearly as tall as he and withdrew. Carolina helped her to undress and she crept into the huge bed with a sigh of relief, for the emotions of the day had tired her out. When the maid had left her she lay quite still, following with her eyes the unfamiliar outlines of this furniture, dimly seen by the flickering night-light. She wondered why she had felt no curiosity as to the rest of the apartment, why she had not even asked to see it. "Poor Egidio! I hope he was not disappointed! I shall be nicer to him to-morrow. He is so kind and this is a beautiful room, even if it is so large and strange and unhome-like--" Her thoughts were wandering drowsily on, when a sudden noise brought her to a sitting posture. A crack of light showed in the wall, then a door she had not seen before, opened and Egidio appeared, dressed for the night. "You! You!" she stammered in surprise, clutching together the folds of her night-dress at the neck.