ent."

"What was it, then?"

"It was a plan. She wished to see Miss Garland. She knew she was to be
here."

"How so?"

"By Roderick, evidently."

"And why did she wish to see Miss Garland?"

"Heaven knows! I give it up!"

"Ah, the wicked girl!" murmured Madame Grandoni.

"No," said Rowland; "don't say that now. She 's too beautiful."

"Oh, you men! The best of you!"

"Well, then," cried Rowland, "she 's too good!"

The opportunity presenting itself the next day, he failed not, as you
may imagine, to ask Mary Garland what she thought of Miss Light. It was
a Saturday afternoon, the time at which the beautiful marbles of the
Villa Borghese are thrown open to the public. Mary had told him that
Roderick had promised to take her to see them, with his mother, and he
joined the party in the splendid Casino. The warm weather had left so
few strangers in Rome that they had the place almost to themselves. Mrs.
Hudson had confessed to an invincible fear of treading, even with the
help of her son's arm, the polished marble floors, and was sitting
patiently on a stool, with folded hands, looking shyly, here and there,
at the undraped paganism around her. Roderick had sauntered off alone,
with an irritated brow, which seemed to betray the conflict between
the instinct of observation and the perplexities of circumstance.
Miss Garland was wandering in another direction, and though she was
consulting her catalogue, Rowland fancied it was from habit; she too
was preoccupied. He joined her, and she presently sat down on a divan,
rather wearily, and closed her Murray. Then he asked her abruptly how
Christina had pleased her.

She started the least bit at the question, and he felt that she had been
thinking of Christina.

"I don't like her!" she said with decision.

"What do you think of her?"

"I think she 's false." This was said without petulance or bitterness,
but with a very positive air.

"But she wished to please you; she tried," Rowland rejoined, in a
moment.

"I think not. She wished to please herself!"

Rowland felt himself at liberty to say no more. No allusion to Christina
had passed between them since the day they met her at Saint Peter's,
but he knew that she knew, by that infallible sixth sense of a woman who
loves, that this strange, beautiful girl had the power to injure her.
To what extent she had the will, Mary was uncertain; but last night's
interview, apparently, had not reassured her. It was, un