"She is as innocent as one, and I'll answer for Rod. Come, be sensible, Fanny. They will be back before sunset, and no one in Sorrento--if that is what is troubling you so--need be any the wiser." "You do not know all," said Fanny. "Oh, Horace--I must tell somebody--she fancies she cares for that man!" She wrung her hands again. "Couldn't we follow them? Get a boat." "It would take an hour. And it would be a very conspicuous thing to do. Leave them alone--it's much better; I tell you I'll answer for Rod. Fancies she cares for him, does she? Well, he is a fine fellow; on the whole, the finest I know." The mother's eyes flashed through her tears. "This from _you_?" "I can't help it; he is. Of course you do not think so. He has got no money; he has never been anywhere that you call anywhere; he doesn't know anything about the only life you care for nor the things you think important. All the same, he is a man in a million. He is a man--not a puppet." Gentle Mrs. Churchill appeared for the moment transformed. She looked as though she could strike him. "Never mind your Quixotic ideas. Tell me whether he is in love with Eva; it all depends upon that." "I don't know, I am sure," answered Bartholomew. He began to think. "I can't say at all; he would conceal it from me." "Because he felt his inferiority. I am glad he has that grace." "He wouldn't be conscious of any inferiority save that he is poor. It would be that, probably, if anything; of course he supposes that Eva is rich." "Would to Heaven she were!" said the mother. "Added to every other horror of it, poverty, miserable poverty, for my poor child!" She sat down and hid her face. "It may not be as bad as you fear, nor anything like it. Do cheer up a little, Fanny. When Eva comes back, ten to one you will find that nothing at all has happened--that it has been a mere ordinary excursion. And I promise you I will take Rod away with me to-morrow." Mrs. Churchill rose and began to pace to and fro, biting her lips, and watching the water. Mademoiselle, who was still hovering near, she waved impatiently away. "Let no one in," she called to her. There seemed, indeed, to be nothing else to do, as Bartholomew had said, save to wait. He sat down and discussed the matter a little. Fanny paid no attention to what he was saying. Every now and then broken phrases of her own burst from her: "How much good will her perfect French and Italian, her German, Spanish, and even Russian, do her down in that barbarous wilderness?"--"In her life she has never even buttoned her boots. Do they think she can make bread?"--"And there was Gino. And poor Pierre." Then, suddenly, "But it _shall_ not be!" "I have been wondering why you did not take that tone from the first," said Bartholomew. "She is very young. She has been brought up to obey you implicitly. It would be easy enough, I should fancy, if you could once make up your mind to it."