yment, whose comprehension of life was extraordinarily--even
dangerously--young.

At last the day dawned upon which they left the villa on the sunny
hill--said good-bye to the wide, slow river, the riotous roses and the
slow-tolling bells of Florence--and took train for the north.

Through the hours of that railway journey Clodagh sat almost silent. To
her eager mind, already springing forward towards the enchanted city,
there was no need for speech; and the quiet, prim husband seated
opposite to her, made no call upon her imagination. He was essential to
the journey--as the padded cushion behind her head, or the English
books and magazines by her side were essential to it--and for this
reason he occupied that most fatal of all positions, the position of an
accepted, familiar accessory. The early days of their marriage, when in
her eyes, he had taken in a new and dreaded aspect, were entirely past.
With his super-sensitiveness and constitutional self-distrust, he had
withdrawn somewhat hastily from the position of lover, to shelter
behind the cloak of his former guardianship. And Clodagh had hailed the
change of attitude with obvious relief.

Now, as she sat eagerly alert to gain her first glimpse of Venice, she
had almost forgotten that those early days had ever existed. For the
moment Milbanke was a cipher; and she an ardent appreciative individual
undergoing a new sensation.

Such was her precise mental position when at last the scene for which
she waited broke upon her view. Rising straight out of the water,
Venice seemed to her ardent eyes even more the product of a visionary
world than her dreams had made it. The hour was seven; and from the
many spires and domes of the city warm gleams of bronze or gold shot
forth at the touch of the setting sun. But the prevailing note of
colour that gleamed through the mauve twilight was white--the
wonderful, semi-transparent white of ancient marble back-grounded by
sea and sky.

The effect made upon Clodagh's mind by this white city wrapped in its
evening veil was instantaneous and deep. With the exception of
Florence, her knowledge of the beauties of Italy was very limited; and
her first glimpse of Florence had been gained under such unpropitious
circumstances that its sheltered loveliness had never appealed to her
as it might otherwise have done. Now, however, her condition of mind
was tranquil, if not happy; and as the train sped forward, she gazed
spell-bound at this