Sybert glanced down at her feet, where a bedraggled cur was crouching, shivering, and looking up with pleading eyes. The blood was running from a cut on its shoulder, and a motley assortment of tin was tied to its tail by a cord. He took out his knife and cut the dog loose, and Marcia stooped and picked it up. ‘Take care, Miss Marcia,’ he said in a disgusted tone. ‘He’s very dirty, and you will get covered with blood.’ Marcia put her handkerchief over the dog’s wound, and it lay in her arms, whimpering and shaking. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ he demanded again, almost roughly. ‘What are you doing in this part of the city alone?’ His tone at another time would have been irritating, but just now she was too grateful for his appearance to be anything but cordial, and she hastily explained— ‘I’ve been spending the afternoon at Tre Fontane with some friends. I left them at the English cemetery, and was just driving back to the station when I saw those miserable little boys chasing this dog. I jumped out and grabbed him, and they all followed me.’ ‘I see,’ said Sybert; ‘and it is fortunate that I happened by when I did, or you wouldn’t have had any money left to pay your cab-driver. These Roman urchins have not the perfect manners one could wish.’ ‘Manners!’ Marcia sniffed indignantly. ‘I loathe the Italians! I think they are the cruellest people I ever saw. Those boys were stoning this poor dog to death.’ ‘I dare say they have not enjoyed your advantages.’ ‘They would have killed him if I hadn’t come just when I did.’ ‘You are not going out to the villa alone?’ ‘No; Aunt Katherine and Gerald are going to meet me at the station.’ ‘Oh, very well,’ he answered in a tone of evident relief, as they turned toward the waiting carriage. ‘Let me take the dog and I will drop him a few streets farther on, where the boys won’t find him again.’ ‘Certainly not,’ said Marcia indignantly. ‘Some other boys would find him. I shall take him home and feed him. He doesn’t look as if he had had anything to eat for weeks.’ ‘In that case,’ said Sybert resignedly, ‘I will drive to the station with you, for he is scarcely a lap-dog and you may have trouble getting him into the train.’ And while she was in the midst of her remonstrance he stepped into the carriage and put the dog on the floor between his feet. The dog, however, did not favour the change, and stretching up an appealing paw he touched Marcia’s knee, with a whine. ‘You poor thing! Stop trembling. Nobody’s going to hurt you,’ and she bent over and kissed him on the nose.