She stayed there for a long time, in the hypnotized contemplation, not of Mrs. Cope’s present, but of her own past. Gannett, early that morning, had gone off on a long walk--he had fallen into the habit of taking these mountain-tramps with various fellow-lodgers; but even had he been within reach she could not have gone to him just then. She had to deal with herself first. She was surprised to find how, in the last months, she had lost the habit of introspection. Since their coming to the Hotel Bellosguardo she and Gannett had tacitly avoided themselves and each other. She was aroused by the whistle of the three o’clock steamboat as it neared the landing just beyond the hotel gates. Three o’clock! Then Gannett would soon be back--he had told her to expect him before four. She rose hurriedly, her face averted from the inquisitorial facade of the hotel. She could not see him just yet; she could not go indoors. She slipped through one of the overgrown garden-alleys and climbed a steep path to the hills. It was dark when she opened their sitting-room door. Gannett was sitting on the window-ledge smoking a cigarette. Cigarettes were now his chief resource: he had not written a line during the two months they had spent at the Hotel Bellosguardo. In that respect, it had turned out not to be the right _milieu_ after all. He started up at Lydia’s entrance. “Where have you been? I was getting anxious.” She sat down in a chair near the door. “Up the mountain,” she said wearily. “Alone?” “Yes.” Gannett threw away his cigarette: the sound of her voice made him want to see her face. “Shall we have a little light?” he suggested. She made no answer and he lifted the globe from the lamp and put a match to the wick. Then he looked at her. “Anything wrong? You look done up.” She sat glancing vaguely about the little sitting-room, dimly lit by the pallid-globed lamp, which left in twilight the outlines of the furniture, of his writing-table heaped with books and papers, of the tea-roses and jasmine drooping on the mantel-piece. How like home it had all grown--how like home! “Lydia, what is wrong?” he repeated. She moved away from him, feeling for her hatpins and turning to lay her hat and sunshade on the table. Suddenly she said: “That woman has been talking to me.” Gannett stared. “That woman? What woman?” “Mrs. Linton--Mrs. Cope.” He gave a start of annoyance, still, as she perceived, not grasping the full import of her words. “The deuce! She told you--?” “She told me everything.” Gannett looked at her anxiously. “What impudence! I’m so sorry that you should have been exposed to this, dear.” “Exposed!” Lydia laughed. Gannett’s brow clouded and they looked away from each other. “Do you know _why_ she told me? She had the best of reasons. The first time she laid eyes on me she saw that we were both in the same box.” “Lydia!” “So it was natural, of course, that she should turn to me in a difficulty.” “What difficulty?”