and Johnstone hung about the reading-room, and
smoked a pipe in the long corridor, till he was sick of the sound of his
own footsteps. Amalfi was all very well in fine weather, he reflected,
but when it rained it was as dismal as penny whist, Sunday in London, or
a volume of sermons--or all three together, he added viciously, in his
thoughts. The German family had fallen back upon the guide book,
Mommsen's _History of Rome_, and the _Gartenlaube_. The Russian invalid
was presumably in his room, with a teapot, and the two English old maids
were reading a violently sensational novel aloud to each other by turns
in the hotel drawing-room. They stopped reading and got very red, when
Johnstone looked in.

It was a dreary afternoon, and he wished that something would happen.
The fight on the preceding day had stirred his blood--and other things
perhaps had contributed to his restless state of mind. He thought of
Clare's torn frock, and he wished he had killed the carter outright. He
reflected that, as the man was attacking him with a knife, he himself
would have been acquitted.

Late in the afternoon the sky cleared and the red light of the lowering
sun struck the crests of the higher hills to eastward. Brook went out
and smelled the earth-scented air, and the damp odour of the
orange-blossoms. But that did not please him either, so he turned back
and went through the long corridor to the platform at the back of the
hotel. To his surprise he came face to face with Clare, who was walking
briskly backwards and forwards, and saw him just as he emerged from the
door. They both stood still and looked at each other with an odd little
constraint, almost like anxiety, in their faces. There was a short,
awkward silence.

"Well?" said Clare, interrogatively, and raising her eyebrows a very
little, as though wondering why he did not speak.

"Nothing," Johnstone answered, turning his face seaward. "I wasn't
going to say anything."

"Oh!--you looked as though you were."

"No," he said. "I came out to get a breath of air, that's all."

"So did I. I--I think I've been out long enough. I'll go in." And she
made a step towards the door.

"Oh, please, don't!" he cried suddenly. "Can't we walk together a little
bit? That is, if you are not tired."

"Oh no! I'm not tired," answered the young girl with a cold little
laugh. "I'll stay if you like--just a few minutes."

"Thanks, awfully," said Brook in a shy, jerky way.

They began t