ft alone with Madame Bernard as much as she had
expected after the first few days, nor even as much as she might have
wished. The feeling against the Princess Chiaromonte was strong, and
as soon as it became known that Angela had found a safe refuge with
her former governess, she received several invitations from more or
less distant connections to spend some time with them in the country
during the coming summer. At the present juncture, in the height of
the season, it was natural that no one should want a forlorn young
girl in deep mourning to make a town visit. She would have been a
killjoy and a wet blanket in any house, that was clear, and nothing
could be more thoroughly respectable and proper than that she should
spend the first weeks under Madame Bernard's roof and protection.

Some of Angela's friends of her own age came to see her by and by and
offered to take her to drive in their mothers' carriages or motor
cars, but she would not go, and though she thanked them with grateful
words for thinking of her, most of them thought, and told each other,
that she had not been very glad to see them and would rather be left
alone. They supposed that she was still too much overcome to wish for
their society, and as young people who drop out of the world after
being in it a very short time are soon forgotten, they troubled
themselves very little about her. If she ever chose to come out of her
solitude, they said, she would be welcome again, but since she wished
to be left to herself it was very convenient to humour her, because
the Princess Chiaromonte had as good as declared that there were
'excellent reasons' for her own apparently heartless conduct. No one
knew what that meant, but when she spoke in that way it was more
blessed to accept her statement than to get her enmity by doubting it.
The Chiaromonte family were at liberty to settle their own affairs as
seemed best in their own eyes, and as the law could not interfere, no
one else felt inclined to do so. Angela had no near relations on her
mother's side to protect her or take her in.

Six weeks passed away without incident after Giovanni had left, and
she had received three letters from him--one from Naples, written
before going on board the steamer, one from Port Said, and one from
Massowah after his arrival there. The expedition was to start in three
days, he said; it had been waiting for him and the officer who was to
take the command, and who had gone with hi