the seconds before it was to stop; and now it beat fast and softly, and fluttered a little, so that she felt faint, as even brave people do after a great danger is past.  I have seen hundreds of men together, just escaped from destruction by earthquake, moving about listlessly with veiled eyes, yawning as if they were dropping with sleep, and saying childish things when they spoke at all.  Man’s body is the part of himself which he least understands, unless he has spent half his life in studying its ways.  Its many portions can only telegraph to the brain two words, ‘pain’ and ‘pleasure,’ with different degrees of energy; but that is all.  The rest of their language belongs to science.

Regina felt faint and sat down, because there was no reason for making any effort to go home.  Perhaps a cab would pass, returning from some outlying part of the city, and she would take it.  From the place where she sat she could see one far off, if any came.

She sank down on the wet ground, and drew up her knees and pulled her cloak round her; and gradually her head bent forward and rested upon her hands, till she sat there like a figure of grief outlined in black against the moonlight on the great wall.  She had forgotten where she was, and that there was any time in the world.

Half an hour passed, and the moon sank low, and an hour, and the deadly white mist began to rise in the shadow round the base of the Colosseum, and crept up under the trees; and if any one had come upon her then, he would have seen its dull whiteness crawling round her feet and body, a hand-breadth above the wet ground.  But she did not know; she had forgotten everything.

Nothing was real any more.  She could have believed that her father had killed her and left her corpse there, strangely sitting, though quite dead.

Then she knew that the light had gone out; and suddenly she felt her teeth chatter, and a chill ran through her bones that was bad to feel.  She raised her head and saw that the great walls were dark against the starry sky, and she rose with an effort, as if her limbs had suddenly become lead.  But she could walk, though it was like walking in sleep.

She did not afterwards remember how she got home, but she had a vague recollection of having lost her way, and of finding a cab at last, and then of letting herself into the little apartment in the dark.

When she was next aware of anything it was broad daylight, and she was lying on her bed, still dressed and wearing her cloak; and Kalmon was bending over her, his eyes on hers and his fingers on her pulse, while old Teresa watched her anxiously from the foot of the bed.

“I’m afraid it is a ‘perniciosa,’” he said.  “Put her to bed while I call a regular doctor.”

Regina looked up at him.

“I have fever, have I not?” she asked quite quietly.

“Yes.  You have a little fever,” he answered, but his big brown eyes were very grave.