red and blue, and there were great garlands of the most beautiful flowers, and the people were like angels, with gems and shining clothes.  Well, you understand, at first we had only seen one side of the scene;—­then click! everything was turned round, and we saw the other side.  That is like life and death.  Always, while we are alive, we can see only one side of things.  But there is the other side, the under side.  Never, so long as we are alive, we can never, never see it.  But when we die,—­click!  It is a transformation-scene.  Everything is turned round, and we see the other side.  Oh, it will be very different, it will be wonderful.  That is what they call Death.”

It was John’s turn to be grave.  It was some time before he spoke.  He looked down at her, with a kind of grave laughter in his eyes, admiring, considering.  What could he say? ...  What he did say, at last, was simply, “Thank you, my dear.”

Annunziata jumped up.

“Oh, come,” she urged.  “Let’s go into the garden.  It is so much nicer there than here.  There are lots of cockchafers.  Besides”—­she held out as an additional inducement—­“we might meet Maria Dolores.”

“No,” said John.  “Though the cockchafers are a temptation, I will stop here.  But go you to the garden, by all means.  And if you do meet Maria Dolores, tell her what you have just told me.  I think she would like to hear it.”

“All right,” consented Annunziata, moving towards the door.  “I’ll see you at dinner.  You won’t forget the marchpane?”

II

John was in a state of mind that perplexed and rather annoyed him.  Until the day before yesterday, his detachment here at Sant’ Alessina from ordinary human society, the absence of people more or less of his own sort, had been one of the elements of his situation which he had positively, consciously, rejoiced in,—­had been an appreciable part of what he had summarized to Lady Blanchemain as “the whole blessed thing.”  He had his castle, his pictures, his garden, he had the hills and valley, the birds, the flowers, the clouds, the sun, he had the Rampio, he had Annunziata, he even had Annunziata’s uncle; and with all this he had a sense of having stepped out of a world that he knew by heart, that he knew to satiety, a world that was stale and stuffy and threadbare, with its gilt rubbed off and its colours tarnished, into a world where everything was fresh and undiscovered and full of savour, a great cool blue and green world that from minute to minute opened up new perspectives, made new promises, brought to pass new surprises.  And this sense, in some strange way, included Time as well as space.  It was as if he had entered a new region of Time, as if he had escaped from the moving current of Time into a stationary moment.  Alone here, where modern things or thoughts had never penetrated, alone with the earth and the sky, the mediaeval castle, the dead ladies, with Annunziata,