Perfetta was banging in the kitchen, and the stairs down led past the kitchen door. But the stairs up to the attic--the stairs no one ever used--opened out of the living-room, and by unlocking the door at the top one might slip out to the square terrace above the house, and thus for ten minutes walk in freedom and peace. The key was in the pocket of Gino’s best suit--the English check--which he never wore. The stairs creaked and the key-hole screamed; but Perfetta was growing deaf. The walls were beautiful, but as they faced west they were in shadow. To see the light upon them she must walk round the town a little, till they were caught by the beams of the rising moon. She looked anxiously at the house, and started. It was easy walking, for a little path ran all outside the ramparts. The few people she met wished her a civil good-night, taking her, in her hatless condition, for a peasant. The walls trended round towards the moon; and presently she came into its light, and saw all the rough towers turn into pillars of silver and black, and the ramparts into cliffs of pearl. She had no great sense of beauty, but she was sentimental, and she began to cry; for here, where a great cypress interrupted the monotony of the girdle of olives, she had sat with Gino one afternoon in March, her head upon his shoulder, while Caroline was looking at the view and sketching. Round the corner was the Siena gate, from which the road to England started, and she could hear the rumble of the diligence which was going down to catch the night train to Empoli. The next moment it was upon her, for the highroad came towards her a little before it began its long zigzag down the hill. The driver slackened, and called to her to get in. He did not know who she was. He hoped she might be coming to the station. “Non vengo!” she cried. He wished her good-night, and turned his horses down the corner. As the diligence came round she saw that it was empty. “Vengo...” Her voice was tremulous, and did not carry. The horses swung off. “Vengo! Vengo!” He had begun to sing, and heard nothing. She ran down the road screaming to him to stop--that she was coming; while the distance grew greater and the noise of the diligence increased. The man’s back was black and square against the moon, and if he would but turn for an instant she would be saved. She tried to cut off the corner of the zigzag, stumbling over the great clods of earth, large and hard as rocks, which lay between the eternal olives. She was too late; for, just before she regained the road, the thing swept past her, thunderous, ploughing up choking clouds of moonlit dust. She did not call any more, for she felt very ill, and fainted; and when she revived she was lying in the road, with dust in her eyes, and dust in her mouth, and dust down her ears. There is something very terrible in dust at night-time. “What shall I do?” she moaned. “He will be so angry.”