“Then she is being good, too,” the nun smiled. “She has been too little afraid of dying, and then it was we who were afraid.” She looked at me very seriously and seemed to purse her lips. I knew what she was going to ask, and I did not know where to look. “Do you know, monsieur, if we will be allowed to give her another _piqure du cœur_? Madame has been very unhappy, and it is good to have happy dreams....” I do not remember what I said, but Sister Virginie said magnificently: “Then I will lie to her for the time being,” and when she had gone I stood at the head of the oaken stairway, thinking how I would like to be very alone for a minute or two. Now and then a nun would pass softly but quickly along the passage behind me, she would seem to be sliding along, and then there came a firmer step, and out of the tail of my eye I saw that man’s great brown coat ballooning towards me. “Well as can be expected,” he muttered gloomily. I looked at him. “Better, really,” he muttered gloomily. “Ready?” We went down the oaken stairway, treading on our toes. There was a sickly whisper of incense in the air, and I found that I had a headache. “But I wish to blazes,” growled that man, “that you hadn’t let that boy go. You could have stopped him....” “No,” I said, “I couldn’t. Besides, I didn’t want to.” “Mm. Well, how did you find her? Wasted, isn’t she?” “Masters,” I said, “she is lying there terrified!” For that was all I could think about, that and the feel on my fingers of the damp, chill hair that had no waves in it now. Masters said: “And a very good thing for her she is terrified. Keep her bucked up, that will. But I wish to blazes....” “Yes, I heard you,” I said, fumbling with the latch of the great doors. “Women!” snapped Masters. “Here, let me.” “I don’t suppose,” I said, “that there are many worse sights than a helpless woman afraid....” “You get used to it,” said Masters gloomily, but I was thinking that Napier would not have been at all used to it, and that he had been very wise in his good-bye, for as sure as anything I was that Venice could not have afforded to let Iris have even one more _piqure du cœur_.... “You don’t look so well yourself,” said Masters. “Growing-pains, Masters. One is always growing up, at other people’s expense....” III I was not to see her again for a while. That man said: “You did her no good the other day. The reverse. She has something on her mind she wants to say to you, and she can’t, and it worries her. Naturally....” “Your instructions,” I said. “She will be angry with you, Masters.” “When she is well,” snapped that captain of men, “she may burst, if I may say so. And so I’ll tell her. But in the meanwhile you will have to wait ten days. Or more.”