need of exercise had set off to walk down through the wood to the first
bridge over the Paglia. Eleanor had been very weary all day, and for the
first time irritable. It was almost with a secret relief that Lucy started,
and Eleanor saw her depart.

Mrs. Burgoyne was left stretched on her long canvas chair, in the green
shade of the Sassetto. All about her was a chaos of moss-grown rocks
crowned with trees young and old; a gap in the branches showed her a
distant peachy sky suffused with gold above the ethereal heights of the
Amiata range; a little wind crept through the trees; the birds were silent,
but the large green lizards slipped in and out, and made a friendly life in
the cool shadowed place.

The Contessa was to have joined Eleanor here at six o'clock. But a note had
arrived excusing her. The visit of some relations detained her.

Nevertheless a little after six a step was heard approaching along the
winding path which while it was still distant Eleanor knew to be Father
Benecke. For his sake, she was glad that the Contessa was not with her.

As for Donna Teresa, when she met the priest in the village or on the road
she shrank out of his path as though his mere shadow brought malediction.

Her pinched face, her thin figure seemed to contract still further under an
impulse of fear and repulsion. Eleanor had seen it, and wondered.

But even the Contessa would have nothing to say to him.

'_Non, Madame; c'est plus fort que moi!_' she had said to Eleanor one day
that she had come across Mrs. Burgoyne and Father Benecke together in the