In a strangled sob, her voice gave way; and, with it, her strength and her self-control. She took a few steps forward; then, like a mechanical figure in which the mechanism has suddenly been suspended, she stopped, swayed a little and, dropping into the nearest chair, broke into a flood of tears--such tears as had shaken her four years ago, when she drove out of Carrigmore on the day of her wedding. _PART IV_ CHAPTER I The penetrating Florentine sunshine was enveloping the villa that stood upon the hill above San Domenico; but it was not the full, warm sunshine of late April that had opened the roses in the garden and deepened the shadows of the cypress trees nearly two years earlier, when Clodagh had dreamed of her visit to Venice. It was the cool sunlight of February, and it fell across the polished floors, and threw into prominence the many antique and curious objects that filled the rooms, with a searching clearness that almost seemed like a human scrutiny. In a small salon that opened upon the terrace Clodagh sat at a bureau. In front of her was a formidable array of letters and business papers, neatly bound into packets by elastic bands, and under her hand was spread a sheaf of unused, black-bordered note-paper. Whether it was the multitude of her own thoughts that retarded the task she had in hand, or a certain air of absolute stillness that seemed to brood over the villa, one could not say; but certain it is that for nearly half an hour she sat in an attitude of abstraction, her fingers poised above the note-paper, the tip of her pen held against her lips. At last, however, a new idea seemed born in her mind, for she laid down her pen, rose suddenly to her feet, and moving across the room, paused beside the window. For a long, silent space she stood at this closed window, her gaze wandering over the scene that custom had rendered so familiar,--the hillside, cut into characteristic tiers of earth, until it sloped downwards almost like a flight of steps, from which the grey olive trees and the black cypresses rose sharply defined in the brilliant atmosphere; at its foot, Florence, with its suggestion of dark-roofed houses and clustering spires; and beyond all, encircling all, the low chain of mountains, blue and purple in the sun. Quite suddenly, with a swift, impulsive movement, she unfastened the latch and threw the window open. In the added radiance that poured into the room, she stood more distinctly revealed, and the slight changes that even two years can make became visible in her face and figure. The pose of her body and the carriage of her head were precisely as they had been, but her cheeks were a little thinner, and some of her brilliant colouring was gone; but the fact that would most speedily have appealed to one who had not seen her for the two years was the circumstance that she wore deep mourning--a mourning that lent an unfamiliar, almost a fragile air to her whole appearance.