Maria Dolores softly laughed, softly, softly.  And for a long time, by the marble balustrade that guarded this particular terrace of the garden, they stood in silence.  The western gold burned to red, and more sombre red; the cloud-promontories gloomed purpler; the pale moon kindled, and shone like ice afire, with its intense cold brilliancy; the olive woods against the sky lay black; a score of nightingales, near and far, were calling and sobbing and exulting; and two human spirits yearned with the mystery of love.

“My income,” said John, all at once, brusquely coming to earth, “is exactly six hundred pounds a year.  I suppose two people could live on that, though I’m dashed if I see how.  Of course we couldn’t live in England, where that infernal future peerage would put us under a thousand obligations; but I dare say we might find a garret here in Italy.  The question is, would she be willing, or have I any right to ask her, to marry me, on the condition of leaving her own money untouched, and living with me on mine?

“Apropos of future peerages and things,” said Maria Dolores, “do you happen to know whether she has any rank of her own to keep up?”

“I don’t care twopence about her rank,” said John.

“Do you happen to know her name?” she asked.

“I know what I wish her name was,” John promptly answered.  “I wish to Heaven it was Blanchemain.”

Maria Dolores gazed, pensive, at the moon.  “He does not even know her name,” she remarked, on a key of meditation, “though he fears,” she sadly shook her head, “he fears it may be Smitti.”

“Oh, I say!” cried John, wincing, with a kind of sorry giggle; and I don’t know whether he looked or felt the more sheepish.  His face showed every signal of humiliation, he tugged nervously at his beard, but his eyes, in spite of him, his very blue blue eyes were full of vexed amusement.

The bell in the clock-tower struck eight.

“There—­it is your hour for going to Annunziata,” said Maria Dolores.

“You have not answered my question?” said John.

“I will think about it,” said she.

IV

Annunziata’s delirium had passed, but in spite of all their efforts to persuade her not to talk, talk she would.

“This is the month of May, isn’t it?” she asked, next morning.

“Yes, dear one,” said Maria Dolores, whose watch it was.

“And that is the month of Mary.  San Luca ought to hurry up and make me well, so that I can keep flowers on the Lady Altar.”

“Then if you wish to get well quickly,” said Maria Dolores, “you must try not to talk,—­nor even to think, if you can help it.  You know the doctor does not want you to talk.”

“All right.  I won’t talk.  A going clock may be always wrong, but a stopped clock is right twice a day.  So stop your tongue, and avoid folly.  My uncle told me that.  He never talks.”