Hard work this thinking to the poor, light-hearted lad. He had thought more in the last few days than ever in his life before, and it had taken the rounded outlines of youth from his face, deepened his eyes, made shadows under them, and given firmness to a too facile mouth. What a beast he had been yesterday in the gardens when the storm was coming up over Bordighera; no wonder she had been repelled; no wonder such selfish madness had been flouted and condemned. He seemed to be waking out of a long, fantastic dream or some wild, prolonged delirium to a sober, sane view of life. Tears came into his eyes, and dropped slowly on the gravel between his feet. A memory of the countess yesterday, with glowing eyes and thrilling voice, made him shiver; the thought of her beauty gave him a sensation of physical nausea. But yesterday, as yesterdays sometimes are, was long and long ago. And here he was, with scarcely two hours to spare before catching the last possible train home. And there was only one thing to be done, and that was impossible. Agatha, in the meantime, had no suspicion of what was passing in her prodigal's mind. She had made her last throw for him and lost. She could only bow her head before an unsearchable dispensation and wait. Her first fierce participation in the execution of the unfortunate Dorris had soon given place to a compunction which prompted her to withdraw, after a vain attempt to stem the torrent of the long-pent wrath of the hotel. She therefore had a quieter conscience than some of the rest, and quickly dismissed the business from her mind. She had quieted Mrs. Boundrish's fears of spotted fever by persuading her that the sweet child was only a little hysterical, a view of the case shortly afterwards confirmed by Mrs. Allonby, who recommended solitude and cheerfully prophesied slumber. This charitable office accomplished, the woman of mystery fared forth in the afternoon sunshine to resume the visit of inquiry to Villa Gilardoni, interrupted by the storm on the previous day, taking with her some papers in the cipher that stamped her with Heaven knows what iniquities in the eyes of Ermengarde, and consulting them as she went down the mule-path, as if they contained instructions or indications of what to do next. The convent walk was no longer a sanctuary for meditation; she had been there in the morning and found men busy opening and cleaning and setting in order both the church and the monastery. At their suggestion she had gone in, inspected the empty cells, simply but sufficiently furnished with bed and table, desk and bookshelf--a book here, a pen there, pointed to recent suddenly interrupted occupation--and wondered over the quiet, harmless, and probably happy and useful lives of the men who had been thrust out, and how they fared now in the loud, perplexing world, and what disgust or disappointment might have driven some of them into this haven of stillness.