ws open," Kalmon answered, "and I have no
valuables."

"No? Good-night again."

"Good-night."

Corbario went out, leaving him the candle, and turned the corner of the
verandah. Then he stood still a long time, leaning against one of the
wooden pillars and looking out. Perhaps the moonlight falling through
the stiff little trees upon the long grass and shrubbery reminded him of
some scene familiar long ago. He smiled quietly to himself as he stood
there.

Three hours later he was there again, in almost exactly the same
attitude. He must have been cold, for the night breeze was stronger, and
he wore only his light sleeping clothes and his feet were bare. He
shivered a little from time to time, and his face looked very white, for
the moon was now high in the heavens and the light fell full upon him.
His right hand was tightly closed, as if it held some small object fast,
and he was listening intently, first to the right, whence he had come,
then to the left, and then he turned his ear towards the trees, through
which the path led away towards the hut where the men slept. But there
was no sound except the sighing of the wind. The frog by the pool had
stopped croaking, and the melancholy cry of the owlet had ceased.

Corbario went softly on, trying the floor of the verandah with his bare
feet at each step, lest the boards should creak a little under his
weight. He reached the window door of his own room, and slipped into the
darkness without noise.

Kalmon cared little for quail-shooting, and as the carriage was going
back to Rome he took advantage of it to reach the city, and took his
departure about nine o'clock in the morning.

"By the way, how did you sleep?" asked Corbario as he shook hands at
parting. "I forgot to ask you."

"Soundly, thank you," answered the Professor.

And he drove away, waving his felt hat to his hosts.

CHAPTER III

Marcello coughed a little as he and Corbario trudged home through the
sand under the hot May sun. It was sultry, though there were few clouds,
and everything that grew looked suddenly languid; each flower and shrub
gave out its own peculiar scent abundantly, the smell of last year's
rotting leaves and twigs all at once returned and mingled with the
odours of green things and of the earth itself, and the heavy air was
over-rich with it all, and hard to breathe. By and by the clouds would
pile themselves up into vast grey and black fortresses, far away beyond
Rome,