her silence was somewhat strange;
for if she had talked of my movements, of anything so detached as the
Giorgione at Castelfranco, she might have alluded to what she could
easily remember was in my mind. It was not to be supposed that the
emotion produced by her aunt's death had blotted out the recollection
that I was interested in that lady's relics, and I fidgeted afterward
as it came to me that her reticence might very possibly mean simply that
nothing had been found. We separated in the garden (it was she who
said she must go in); now that she was alone in the rooms I felt that
(judged, at any rate, by Venetian ideas) I was on rather a different
footing in regard to visiting her there. As I shook hands with her for
goodnight I asked her if she had any general plan--had thought over what
she had better do. "Oh, yes, oh, yes, but I haven't settled anything
yet," she replied quite cheerfully. Was her cheerfulness explained by
the impression that I would settle for her?

I was glad the next morning that we had neglected practical questions,
for this gave me a pretext for seeing her again immediately. There was a
very practical question to be touched upon. I owed it to her to let her
know formally that of course I did not expect her to keep me on as a
lodger, and also to show some interest in her own tenure, what she might
have on her hands in the way of a lease. But I was not destined, as it
happened, to converse with her for more than an instant on either of
these points. I sent her no message; I simply went down to the sala and
walked to and fro there. I knew she would come out; she would very soon
discover I was there. Somehow I preferred not to be shut up with her;
gardens and big halls seemed better places to talk. It was a splendid
morning, with something in the air that told of the waning of the long
Venetian summer; a freshness from the sea which stirred the flowers in
the garden and made a pleasant draught in the house, less shuttered and
darkened now than when the old woman was alive. It was the beginning of
autumn, of the end of the golden months. With this it was the end of
my experiment--or would be in the course of half an hour, when I should
really have learned that the papers had been reduced to ashes. After
that there would be nothing left for me but to go to the station; for
seriously (and as it struck me in the morning light) I could not linger
there to act as guardian to a piece of middle-aged female