Next, they went on to Italy, posting straight to Pisa, and there Lord Level took a pretty villa for a month in the suburbs of the town. Pisa itself was deserted: it was hot weather; and Blanche did not think it had many attractions. Lord Level, however, seemed to find pleasure in it. He knew Pisa well, having stayed at it in days gone by. He made Blanche familiar with the neighbourhood; together they admired and wondered at the Leaning Tower, in its green plain, backed by distant mountains; but he also went out and about a good deal alone. One English dame of fashion was sojourning in the place--a widow, Mrs. Page Reid. She occupied the next villa to theirs, and called upon them; and she and Lady Level grew tolerably intimate. She was a talkative, gay woman of thirty--and beside her Blanche seemed like a timid schoolgirl. One evening, when dinner was over, Lord Level strolled out--as he often did--leaving his wife with Mrs. Page Reid, who had dined with them. The two ladies talked together, and sang a song or two; and so whiled away the time. "Let us go out for a stroll, too!" exclaimed Mrs. Page Reid, speaking on a momentary impulse, when she found the time growing monotonous. Blanche readily agreed. It was a most lovely night; the moon bright and silvery in the Italian sky. Putting on some fleecy shawls, the ladies went down the solitary road, and turned by-and-by into a narrow lane that looked like a grove of evergreens. Soon they came to a pretty dwelling-place on the left, half villa, half cottage. Vines grew up its trellised walls, flowers and shrubs crowded around it. "A charming little spot!" cried Mrs. Page Reid, as they halted to peep through the hedge of myrtles that clustered on each side the low entrance-gate. "And two people are sitting there--lovers, I dare say," she added, "telling their vows under the moonbeams." In front of the vine-wreathed window, on a bench overhung by the branches of the trailing shrubs, the laurels and the myrtles, sat two young people. The girl was tall, slender, graceful; her dark eyes had a flashing fire even in the moonlight; her cheeks wore a rose-red flush. "How pretty she is!" whispered Blanche. "Look at her long gold earrings! And he---- Oh!" "What's the matter?" cried Mrs. Page Reid, the tone of the last word startling her. "It is my husband." "Nonsense!" began Mrs. Page Reid. But after one doubting, disbelieving look, she saw that it was so. Catching Blanche's hand, she drew her forcibly away, and when they had gained the highroad, burst into a long, low laugh. "Don't think about it, dear," she said to Blanche. "It's nothing. The best of husbands like to amuse themselves behind our backs." "Perhaps he was--was--inquiring the way--or something," hazarded Blanche, whose breath was coming rather faster than usual. Mrs. Page Reid nearly choked. "Oh, to be sure!" she cried, when she could speak. "You don't think so? You think it was--something else?"