d."

He set himself to soothe and comfort her, but it was not easy.

"I might as well be ugly," she cried again and again.

It was the simple expression of her defeat. The beauty she had held to
be a shield against sorrow and a key to the garden of delights was but
a poor thing after all. It had not availed her, and she had nothing
else. She was stripped now, naked, alone and defenceless in a hard
world.

"_Carissima_, be still. Have patience. I love you, and I shall come
for you," whispered Tor di Rocca, and she tried to believe him, and to
persuade herself that the flame in his brown eyes would burn for her
always.

Slowly, as the passion of grief ebbed, the tide of love rose in her
and flushed her wan, tear-stained face and made it beautiful. The
door of the room was opened, but neither she nor the man heard it, or
saw it closed again. It was their last hour, this bare room was their
world and they were alone in it.

CHAPTER XI

The table was set for lunch out on the terrace where Astorre lay
gazing upon his Tuscany, veiled in a shimmering haze of heat and
crowned with August blue. The best coffee cups of majolica ware had
been set out, and signora had made a _zabajone_ in honour of
_Ferragosto_. It was meant to please Olive, who was childishly fond of
its thick yellow sweetness, but she seemed restless and depressed;
Astorre looked ill, and his mother's eyes were anxious as they dwelt
on him, and so the dainty was eaten in silence, and passed away
unhonoured and unsung as though it were humble pie or a funeral baked
meat.

Later in the afternoon, when the signora had gone to lie down, Astorre
began to ask questions.

"Is your face hot?"

"Yes--no--what makes you think--"

"You are flushed," he said bluntly, "and you will not meet my eyes.
Why? Why?"

"Don't ask," she answered. "I cannot tell you."

The haggard, aquiline face changed and hardened. "Someone has been
rude to you, or has frightened you."

"No." She moved away to escape the inquisition of his eyes. "Some of
these plants want water. I shall fetch some." She was going in when
he called to her.

"Olive," he said haltingly. "Perhaps we ought to have told you before.
My mother heard of some people who want an English governess from a
friend of hers who is a music mistress in Florence. They are rich and
would pay well, and we should have told you when we heard of it, three
days ago, but I could not bear the thought of your leaving