It was a few weeks after his tea-party that Maurice Hopton strolled along an unfrequented square, turning many things over in his mind.

He was thinking how well his friendship with Rosamund had lately prospered, and making mental notes on his plans for the afternoon, when he and the two ladies were to go to see the picture he had talked about on his first visit to Mrs. Molesworth at the Hôtel d’Angleterre.

There was only one cloud to stain his horizon, a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, but one which he determined to provide against before it should pour its unmerited deluge upon his deserving but unprotected head. The cloud was the fact that Mrs. Molesworth was becoming rather restive under the discursive rhetoric of Dr. Baumschwein, who had lately accompanied them to every place of interest, ostensibly to lead them through the tortuous ways of architecture and history, and really to engage her attention while Hopton wandered undisturbed with the object of what passed for his affections. But now the wing of the innocent German could no longer cover his advance, and the necessity for a new arrangement was arising. There must be two new characters introduced into the game--two new characters who would occupy Mrs. Molesworth, Dr. Baumschwein, and each other, while he made the venture on which all would depend and which he had decided to make without delay. The time was ripe for it at last. His trouble was that he could not make up his mind who the two new characters should be; for, though he had invited several friends to go with him that afternoon, no one had been able to accept his invitation. It was most provoking.

In the centre of the open square which he was crossing was a well, surrounded by a decorated parapet about three feet high, and on this little wall was seated a small figure in a shady hat. Recognising Mrs. Wylde, Hopton emerged from the shade and crossed the blazing square, throwing away his cigarette and feeling that Heaven, from which he deserved so much, had at last bestirred itself and sent him the right person. He was sure that, if she joined his party, Lena would bring Blundell with her; for he was aware of their friendship, though he called it by a different name.

She was watching his approach with all the antagonism which beset her whenever she saw him; she disliked him more than usual just now, having seen with misgiving how he had lately hung about the Molesworths. Independently of her own private hopes, she could not bear the idea of Rose’s happiness being entrusted to a man like the one who was now advancing over the scorching stones.

“Don’t take off your hat,” she said, without offering her hand; “you might get a sunstroke.”

Maurice smiled and disobeyed her.

“May I sit down?” he inquired pleasantly.

“Certainly,” she replied, “if you will promise not to fall in backwards.”

Hopton was rather annoyed; the idea of falling backwards into the well was ridiculous, and he hated being connected with anything ridiculous. He took no notice of the remark, and, brushing some dust from the stone with his handkerchief, sat down beside her. Lena saw he was annoyed, and was pleased; it gave her a kind of cheerful desire to prolong the interview.

He, however, had no wish for that; and, having secured her company for the afternoon, had only to suggest that she should bring a friend with her. Much to his satisfaction, she proposed Blundell, and, having settled it, they parted, each secretly delighted--he, because he had ensured the presence of two people who he believed would engage the attention of Mrs. Molesworth, while they did not interfere with himself; and she, because she wanted to see Hopton and Rose together, that she might judge the extent of their intimacy. Robert would be a great help to her, she thought, as she rose. She went home quickly, sent a message to Blundell, ate her luncheon, and had an hour’s rest in her room; after which she arose with a smiling face and went off to meet Mrs. Molesworth, Rosamund, Dr. Baumschwein, and the two young men.

Having traversed a perfect labyrinth of small canals, the party entered a gloomy church overlooking a piazza, where the grass grew in unmolested tufts between the crooked paving-stones. Dr. Baumschwein, who was shortsighted, nearly fell down the steps which led into the damp old building, and Hopton rushed forward to succour his unconscious ally.

“Dank you! Dank you, my dear vriend!” cried the poor Professor, clutching his unseated spectacles. “And now we kom to a beautiful sbessimen of----”

“But first let us see my picture, while the light lasts,” interposed Maurice, dragging him almost by main force from a pillar for which he was making; “we can come back to this afterwards.”

He was longing to get over his own part as guide, that he might walk off into some more secluded corner of the place with Rosamund.

It took him some time to overtake and restrain the enthusiastic old man, who was more at home among the mouldering tombs and arches than in any other place in the world. While he strove with him for the mastery, Lena looked on with the keenest relish, waiting, like an astute general, to see which way the tide of war turned before bringing up her own reinforcements. Never before was a church the scene of such a struggle, she reflected, as she stood a little apart and contemplated the party, all of whom, excepting herself and Maurice, were ignorant of what was going on. She and he were like two commanders of opposing forces, only he did not know who his enemy was--or, indeed, that he had one at all.

In the sacristy hung the painting which they had come to see, and into this room, with its musty smell and tattered curtains, they followed Hopton. The afternoon light struggled through the old window, striking into a dark recess and revealing the Virgin’s fair, mysterious face, as she sat enthroned against a background of golden sky, holding the Infant in her arms. On either side of her stood a saint--John the Baptist, brown and earnest; George, in his silver armour, with hands crossed upon his sword. Behind the gilded canopy, under which the painter had represented the central figure, stretched some low, distant hills; and the boughs of a solitary tree stood out dark against the sunset.

All were struck by the beauty of the picture, and stood silent, till Robert and Rosamund began to talk quietly as they leaned against the window-sill opposite. At this, Maurice was instantly alert, and soon managed to insinuate himself between them; then, on some pretext of showing her another part of the building, he separated the girl from her companions and disappeared with her through the sacristy door. On returning to the church, Lena could see them walking between the pillars of the opposite aisle, through which Maurice was evidently making for the entrance to the green cloister outside. The sight determined her that he should never reach it undisturbed. It angered her that Rose should have been snatched so conspicuously from Blundell. Also, she noticed that Mrs. Molesworth’s eye was following the retreating figures, and that her whole body was not doing so only on account of the flow of broken English with which the Professor was assailing her, and from which she found escape impossible. A glance sufficed to show Lena that the pivot on which the whole situation turned was Dr. Baumschwein.

“Herr Professor,” she said, turning to him, as he paused for breath, “you are forgetting to tell us about that carved pillar.”

As Dr. Baumschwein, delighted, hurled himself towards the pillar, she saw Mrs. Molesworth speed like an arrow from a bow towards the cloister. Her joy was so great that she could hardly follow the Professor’s discourse.

But she was not a person to do things by halves; once she had undertaken her part, she had no idea of giving it up; so when, after a long afternoon, in which she succeeded in making the good old man think her the most enlightened of womankind, they all stood at the church door together, Maurice’s face, as he looked at Robert, showed that she had met with the reward of her works.

They parted outside, Mrs. Molesworth and Rosamund getting into a gondola, and Hopton and Dr. Baumschwein, who were dining together, departing in the same way. Robert and Lena walked slowly homewards.

“I want to talk to you,” said he, rubbing his chin meditatively--“that is, if you’ll listen.”

“Well?” said Mrs. Wylde, looking expectant.

“I don’t know where to begin.”

“Stuff!” said Lena. “My good man, at your time of life!”

He laughed.

“You will be awfully surprised,” he began; “but I want to marry Miss Slade.”

He paused and looked for the surprise; but he was disappointed.

“Do you want me to be astonished?” she inquired.

“You _expected_ it?”

“Well, I can hardly say that. But I have hoped for it so long, Robert, ever since you first met her, weeks ago! Just think of all the evenings on which I made you come in and see me when she was dining with me; and of all the times lately that you have met her with me. And I can’t tell you how glad I am, and what luck I wish you. Oh, Robert! I _am_ so glad! You’ll let me tell Nat, won’t you? He’ll be so excited.”

“Of course. But it’s all very well,” continued he, thinking that he had never quite realised before what a nice woman she was, “but how do I know she’ll accept me? That creature Hopton does nothing but follow her about. You don’t know what difficulty I had in getting near her this afternoon.”

“I _don’t know_?” exclaimed Lena, laughing out loud--“I _don’t know_? Why, you could never have done so at all if I hadn’t seized poor old Baumschwein, and left her cousin free to go and spoil their _tête-à-tête_. I never had so much trouble in all my life, nor listened to such a flow of learning.”

“Well, I’m hanged!” exclaimed Blundell vulgarly, “you really are the cleverest woman in the world. And to think I never suspected all that!”

“What became of you afterwards?”

“Mrs. Molesworth appropriated Hopton, and I sat in the cloister with Miss Slade for nearly half an hour, I should think, while you were in the church. I don’t think Hopton was pleased.”

Here they smiled.

“I have been thinking it over for some time,” he went on more gravely, “and I do think I should be very happy with her; and, what is far more important, I should try my best to make her happy with me. Of course, the money has nothing to do with it--you know that, don’t you?”

“Don’t insult me, Robert,” she said.

“She’s _so_ pretty and charming. The only thing I fear is Hopton. I can’t bear that fellow. Not so much because he is in my way, you understand, but I hate the man himself, and I believe he would make her miserable. I don’t think he’s honest or genuine, and if he seriously means to marry, he shouldn’t go on in the way he does.”

“What do you mean?” asked Mrs. Wylde, opening her eyes. “I dislike him particularly, but I have never heard anything against his character.”

“I mean Madame de la Trappe.”

“Madame de la Trappe! Who is Madame de la Trappe?”

“Dear me, every one knows about her--at least, every one who lives in Venice. She is a Russian, wife of a clerk in a French bank here; he’s a good-for-nothing fellow, who drinks. She’s very handsome; surely you must have seen her.”

“Is she a tall woman with high cheekbones and perfectly done hair?”

“And splendid eyes. Yes, that’s Madame de la Trappe.”

“I met them walking only a few days ago,” said Lena. “But this is all news to me. I hadn’t an idea of it.”

“Ah! but it has gone on for ages; I suppose people have got tired of talking. My lodgings are exactly opposite to her house. I see him going in continually.”

Lena sighed.

“Well, I look to you to save Rose from him,” she said, after a pause, “though I don’t really think she cares much for him, except as a relief from her surroundings. However, there’s no knowing, and my advice to you is this: settle it at once if you can. How can I help, I wonder, and when shall you see her again? Suppose I ask her to come out with me, and you come too. I could get myself out of the way somehow, and you might speak then. But where shall we go?”

“Anywhere--the Lido,” suggested he, remembering the last time he had been there.

“Of course--the very thing! I can’t manage to-morrow or next day, or the next day either. How about the day after that--Thursday?”

“Thank you a thousand, thousand times,” said Robert gratefully. “Thursday, then.”

And they parted.

Robert was not the only person who determined that evening that delay was undesirable. When Dr. Baumschwein had left, enveloped in a tartan comforter, Maurice remained at the open window, smoking into the night air which was creeping over the silent town. He was thinking furiously over the events of his unsuccessful day--of Blundell, of Mrs. Wylde, of his mistake in having invited them, of his newly departed and unconscious aide-de-camp, Baumschwein, and, above all, of Rosamund’s prospective £4,000 a year. At last he pushed his chair back, making it grate sharply over the carpetless parquet, and opened an inlaid writing-table that stood near him. He sat in front of it, pen in hand, for fully ten minutes, doing nothing; then he selected a half-sheet of writing-paper from a little orderly stack of these remnants lying under a paper-weight, and wrote down several words. They were the headings of the various ideas upon which he intended to touch in his letter to Rosamund.

Just under the window a man in a gondola on the water began singing one of the most impassioned of the passionate Venetian lovesongs, throwing his liquid and strenuous voice boldly into the still shadows of the surrounding houses. Maurice rose and flung the sash to with a noise that made the room shake. Then he sat down again and wrote rapidly, checking off each heading on the half-sheet as he disposed of each subject. When he had finished, he took up his hat and went out to the nearest post-office.

On his way back he turned into a quiet street and stood for a moment under the balcony of a tall and rather dilapidated-looking house. He glanced up, and whistled a little tune very softly; it was the same tune which the man in the boat had annoyed him by singing. A window opened on the first floor, and a rather large white hand, startlingly white in the darkness, rested for an instant on the sill. A few words in broken English floated down to him, and the hand was waved; it was a repellent wave, and the window was abruptly closed. Maurice gave a little irritated laugh. Then he went home to bed, and slept the sleep of the just.

Mrs. Wylde was a good correspondent and had the pen of a ready writer. Her husband had once remarked that it was almost worth while dispensing with her company in order to get her letters; and this remark had some pertinency, as her company was a thing of which he was fond. He was now abundantly gratified. A great part of the day following these events was spent by her in giving him a full account of all that had happened, and neither incidents nor descriptions lost anything in the telling. Lena wrote on in her cool, darkened sitting-room, smiling as she laid aside the sheets of closely-written paper. In the evening she sent for a gondola and went out into the Lagoon away from the town, returning late, and having seen no one she knew, either by land or sea. She was a good deal agitated by the doings of her friends, in spite of her smiles and her absurd letters, and determined, for the present, to leave the whole party alone. She therefore occupied herself by idling about in quiet places, looking into old shops and spending more money than she intended, and the evening before the day which was to decide Blundell’s fate found her sitting peacefully alone in her room, tired after her wanderings. Seven o’clock struck on the great bell over the water and the note vibrated softly, leaving a sound in the air like the music of a swarm of bees in a lime-tree.

The light began to fade and the words on the page of her book to mix themselves up in places in which the printer had never put them. The volume dropped from her hand, and she slipped into pleasant oblivion of all earthly interests.

She was startled by a knock at the lower door.

“Ask the signorina to come in,” said she, sitting very upright, in answer to the servant’s announcement. She felt quite certain that her visitor was Rose, and wondered very much what had brought her. Was it possible that luck had pushed her and Robert together, and that he had spoken? Her heart beat fast as she saw the new consciousness written all over her friend’s face.

“Rose! What has happened?” she cried.

The girl caught her hand.

“I have come to tell you,” she said, “I am going to be married. Oh, Mrs. Wylde! I do so hope you’ll be glad.”

“Glad? Of course I’m glad, if it’s any one I like--any one I think worthy of you.”

“Oh!” said Rosamund; “but you know I could never have married the other--never!”

“Oh, my dear!--my dear! how thankful I am to hear you say that! I did hope you would make the right choice. You will be happy! There’s no one I know half so straight and true and strong as Robert. You have done wisely; of that I am as certain as that I stand here.”

Rose blushed to the roots of her hair and then turned white.

“Stop! stop!” she cried, “you are making a mistake--a dreadful mistake. It’s Mr. Hopton.”

Mrs. Wylde felt as though she had fallen from heaven to earth, and was, not unnaturally, unable to get up.

“But what did you mean by ‘the other’?” she asked faintly.

“I meant Heathcote.”

“Oh! _Heathcote?_ I had forgotten that he was alive.”

They stood looking at each other in silence; it was all that Lena could do to restrain her tears, so bitterly was she disappointed.

“Do you love this man?” she said at last, when they were sitting together in the fast-going light.

“Yes, I do,” replied Rose. “I like him very much, but I’m afraid--I see--that you don’t.”

“And are you _really_ marrying him because you love him?” inquired Lena again, without taking any notice of what the girl had said.

“Yes.”

“For no other reason at all?” persisted Mrs. Wylde.

Rosamund hesitated.

“I have a good many reasons,” she said, after a moment, “but--but I have made up my mind at last. So I have said yes; I saw him yesterday morning, and it was settled. Even Cousin Julia has consented, for she knows now that I will never marry Heathcote, and I think she will be relieved to be rid of me. Mr. Hopton--Maurice--telegraphed to his uncle in England to get my guardian’s consent, too, and he has got it; the answer came before I left the hotel.”

Lena’s heart sank.

“Oh, I hope you will be very, very happy,” she faltered. “Oh, Rose, Rose! it must be an awful thing to be unhappy in one’s married life! Nothing on earth can make up for a sorrow of that sort--nothing, nothing. Are you quite sure this is the right thing? Can you honestly say you aren’t doing this to escape from home difficulties? I can’t feel that you are quite single-minded.”

Rosamund turned away her head. A sharp rap fell upon the door, but the two women were so much excited that they had no ears for anything but the sound of each other’s voices; and, before they had realised that they were no longer alone, Robert was standing in the doorway, and the curtain had fallen behind him.

Lena and Rose sat petrified, feeling as though they were a pair of burglars in the act of emptying a safe, and Blundell was the policeman. Rose sprang up from her chair, colouring violently. Fortunately it had grown so dark that no one could see her face.

“Good-bye,” she stammered. “I must go now. It’s quite late, and I’ve stayed too long.”

And, without looking at the young man, she pushed aside the curtain and was gone.

Mrs. Wylde flew after her, and caught her on the landing.

“You will come back?” she cried. “You _must_ come back! I shall dine in an hour. Go, and return here then, and dine with me. Please, please, Rose, if you love me, come back!”

“Yes, yes; all right,” said the girl hurriedly, as she disappeared down the stone stairs.

Blundell stood at the window; he read in the two women’s faces that something unusual was going on, and his own fears suggested to him but too accurately what it was.

“Robert! Robert! it’s too late!” exclaimed his friend, almost hysterically, as she re-entered. “It’s settled, and they are engaged. Oh, how too, too unlucky!”

He hardly replied.

“I was afraid of it,” he said slowly. “I pray and hope that he may be good to her.”

“He won’t,” said Lena. “I’m sure of it! It’s all as bad as bad can be; she is accepting him to get away from her present life. I could see that as soon as I began to talk to her. She has no idea of the sort of man he really is; she has no experience. It is bad enough you should be rejected for him at all; but to be rejected for his sake when she does not even love him is worse.”

“I haven’t been rejected,” said he. “I haven’t even had that satisfaction.”

They sat together until the clock warned them it was nearly time for Rose to return.

“I am afraid this is a tremendous disappointment to you,” she said, as he was leaving.

“It is,” he answered quietly. “I think I must go away from here; I will go and join Nat in the Tyrol. I can’t look on at Hopton. I shall come round and say good-bye to you to-morrow. You have done so much for me; how can I ever thank you enough?”

“I shall go too,” said Lena. “I don’t want to spoil Rose’s comfort by my hatred of it all, and I have not the power of pretending that I like it. I shall go to Nat as soon as I can get ready. I could start at any time after to-morrow. Will you wait for me till then?”

“Of course I will,” he replied, as he went out.