She did not see him again for a week, and meantime she did not tell the vice-consul of what had happened.  But an anxiety for the minister began to mingle with her anxieties for herself; she constantly wondered why she did not hear from her lover, and she occasionally wondered whether Mr. Orson were not falling into want again.  She had decided to betray his condition to the vice-consul, when he came, bringing the money she had lent him.  He had received a remittance from an unexpected source; and he hoped she would excuse his delay in repaying her loan.  She wished not to take the money, at least till he was quite sure he should not want it, but he insisted.

“I have enough to keep me, now, till I hear from other sources, with the means for returning home.  I see no object in continuing here, under the circumstances.”

In the relief which she felt for him Clementina’s heart throbbed with a pain which was all for herself.  Why should she wait any longer either?  For that instant she abandoned the hope which had kept her up so long; a wave of homesickness overwhelmed her.

“I should like to go back, too,” she said.  “I don’t see why I’m staying.”

“Mr. Osson, why can’t you let me”—­she was going to say—­“go home with you?” But she really said what was also in her heart, “Why can’t you let me give you the money to go home?  It is all Mrs. Landa’s money, anyway.”

“There is certainly that view of the matter,” he assented with a promptness that might have suggested a lurking grudge for the vice-consul’s decision that she ought to keep the money Mrs. Lander had given her.

But Clementina urged unsuspiciously:  “Oh, yes, indeed!  And I shall feel better if you take it.  I only wish I could go home, too!”

The minister was silent while he was revolving, with whatever scruple or reluctance, a compromise suitable to the occasion.  Then he said, “Why should we not return together?”

“Would you take me?” she entreated.

“That should be as you wished.  I am not much acquainted with the usages in such matters, but I presume that it would be entirely practicable.  We could ask the vice-consul.”

“Yes—­”

“He must have had considerable experience in cases of the kind.  Would your friends meet you in New York, or—­”

“I don’t know,” said Clementina with a pang for the thought of a meeting she had sometimes fancied there, when her lover had come out for her, and her father had been told to come and receive them.  “No,” she sighed, “the’e wouldn’t be time to let them know.  But it wouldn’t make any difference.  I could get home from New Yo’k alone,” she added, listlessly.  Her spirits had fallen again.  She saw that she could not leave Venice till she had heard in some sort from the letter she had written.  “Perhaps it couldn’t be done, after all.  But I will see Mr. Bennam about it, Mr. Osson; and I know he will want you to have that much of the money.  He will be coming he’e, soon.”