He rose upon what he must have thought her hint, and said, “I should not wish to have him swayed against his judgment.”

The vice-consul came not long after the minister had left her, and she began upon what she wished to do for him.

The vice-consul was against it.  “I would rather lend him the money out of my own pocket.  How are you going to get along yourself, if you let him have so much?”

She did not answer at once.  Then she said, hopelessly, “I’ve a great mind to go home with him.  I don’t believe there’s any use waiting here any longa.”  The vice-consul could not say anything to this.  She added, “Yes, I believe I will go home.  We we’e talking about it, the other day, and he is willing to let me go with him.”

“I should think he would be,” the vice-consul retorted in his indignation for her.  “Did you offer to pay for his passage?”

“Yes,” she owned, “I did,” and again the vice-consul could say nothing.  “If I went, it wouldn’t make any difference whether it took it all or not.  I should have plenty to get home from New York with.”

“Well,” the vice-consul assented, dryly, “it’s for you to say.”

“I know you don’t want me to do it!”

“Well, I shall miss you,” he answered, evasively.

“And I shall miss you, too, Mr. Bennam.  Don’t you believe it?  But if I don’t take this chance to get home, I don’t know when I shall eva have anotha.  And there isn’t any use waiting—­no, there isn’t!”

The vice-consul laughed at the sort of imperative despair in her tone. 
“How are you going?  Which way, I mean.”

They counted up Clementina’s debts and assets, and they found that if she took the next steamer from Genoa, which was to sail in four days, she would have enough to pay her own way and Mr. Orson’s to New York, and still have some thirty dollars over, for her expenses home to Middlemount.  They allowed for a second cabin-passage, which the vice-consul said was perfectly good on the Genoa steamers.  He rather urged the gentility and comfort of the second cabin-passage, but his reasons in favor of it were wasted upon Clementina’s indifference; she wished to get home, now, and she did not care how.  She asked the vice-consul to see the minister for her, and if he were ready and willing, to telegraph for their tickets.  He transacted the business so promptly that he was able to tell her when he came in the evening that everything was in train.  He excused his coming; he said that now she was going so soon, he wanted to see all he could of her.  He offered no excuse when he came the next morning; but he said he had got a letter for her and thought she might want to have it at once.

He took it out of his hat and gave it to her.  It was addressed in Hinkle’s writing; her answer had come at last; she stood trembling with it in her hand.

The vice-consul smiled.  “Is that the one?”

“Yes,” she whispered back.