“Why not?”

“Because they have told you that I am a wicked woman,” Regina answered, a slight blush rising in her cheeks.  “And perhaps it is true.  But it was for him.”

“I would take your hand anywhere, because you saved his life,” said Aurora, and her voice shook a little as she said the last words.  “And besides, no one has told me that you are wicked.  Come, what is the use of hating each other?”

Regina took her hand reluctantly, but not suspiciously, and held it a moment.

“It does not mean that I shall not hate you if he ever loves you again,” she said.  “If I made you think that it would be treachery, and that is the worst sin.”

“It only means that I thank you now, quite honestly,” Aurora answered, and their hands parted.

“Very well.”  Regina seemed satisfied.  “And I thank you for taking my hand,” she added, with something oddly like real gratitude, “and because you said you would do it anywhere, even before other women.  I know what I am, and what people call me.  But it was for him.  Let us not talk of it any more.  I will help you down, and you shall go home alone.”

“My mother is waiting for me far down, towards the village,” Aurora said.

“All the better.  A young lady like you should not go about without any one.  It is not proper.”

Aurora suppressed a smile at the thought of being reproved concerning the proprieties by “Marcello’s Regina,” and she began the descent.  Regina went down first, facing the rock, and planting the young girl’s feet in the best stepping places, one after the other, with constant warnings and instructions as to holding on with her hands.  They reached the bottom in safety, and came to the place where Regina had left her hat and shoes.  She sat down where she had been sitting when she had first heard the cry, and began to put them on.

“I had taken them off for coolness as I sat here,” she explained.  “You see, until I was fourteen I only wore them on Sundays.”

“And yet you have such beautiful feet,” Aurora said.

“Have I?” Regina asked indifferently.  “I thought all feet were alike.  But I have torn my stocking—­it is hard to get the shoe on.”

“Let me help you.”  Aurora knelt down quickly, and began to loosen the lacing further, but Regina protested, flushing deeply and trying to draw her foot back.

“No, no!” she cried.  “You are a lady!”

“What difference does that make?” asked Aurora, laughing and insisting.

“This is not right!” Regina still protested, and the blush had not left her cheeks.

But Aurora smoothed the torn stocking under the sole of each foot, and slipped on the shoes, which were by no means tight, and tied the lacing fast.

“Thank you, Signorina,” Regina said, much confused.  “You are too good!”

She picked up her hat and put it on, but she was not clever with the pin, for she was used to having Settimia do everything for her which she had not learned to do for herself before she had come to Rome.