MARCIA passed the afternoon in a state of nervous impatience for her uncle’s return. She said nothing to Mrs. Copley of the man she had found asleep in the grotto, and the effort to preserve an outward serenity added no little to her inner trepidation. In vain she tried to reason with her fear; it was not a subject which responded to logic. She assured herself over and over again that the man could not be the same Neapolitan who had warned her uncle; that he was safely in prison; and that the tattooed crucifix was only the general mark of a secret society. The assurance did not carry conviction. Her first startled impression had been too deep to be thrown off lightly, and coming just then, in the midst of the rioting and lawlessness, the incident carried additional force. She had lately heard many stories of lonely villas being broken into, of travellers on the Campagna being waylaid and robbed, of the vindictiveness of the Camorra, which her uncle had opposed. The stories were not reassuring; and though she resolutely put them out of her mind, she found herself thinking of them again and again. Italy’s elaborate police system, she knew, was not merely for show. Mr. Copley and the Melvilles were due at five, but as they had not appeared by half-past, Mrs. Copley decided that they had missed their train, and she and Marcia sat down to tea—or, more accurately, to iced lemonade—without waiting. The table was set under the shade of the ilex trees where the grove met the upper end of the terrace, and where any slight breeze that chanced to be stirring would find them out. Gerald and Gervasio swallowed their allotted glassful and two _brioches_ with dispatch, and withdrew to the cool shadows of the ilex grove to play at horse with poor, patient Bianca and the streaming ribbons of her cap. Mrs. Copley and Marcia took the repast in more leisurely fashion, with snatches of very intermittent conversation. Marcia’s eyes wandered in the pauses to the poppy-sprinkled wheat field and the cypresses beyond. ‘I believe they are coming, after all!’ Mrs. Copley finally exclaimed, as she shaded her eyes with her hands and looked down across the open stretch of vineyards to where the Roman road, a yellow ribbon of dust, divided the fields. ‘Yes, that is the carriage!’ Marcia looked at the moving speck and shook her head. ‘Your eyes are better than mine, Aunt Katherine, if you can recognize Uncle Howard at this distance.’ ‘The carriage is turning up our road. I am sure it is they. Poor things! I am afraid they will be nearly dead after the drive in this heat. Rome must have been unbearable to-day.’ And she hastily dispatched Pietro to prepare more iced drinks.