He spoke the last words in a low voice, but he were a proud look.

“And if this proposal were entertained,” said Edwards, meditatively, “of course, they would abandon this other business.”

“My good friend,” said Calabressa, confidentially, “I know that Lind, who sees things with a large vision, is against it.  He consents—­as you consent to do your little outside part—­against his own opinion.  More; if he had been on the Council the decree would never have been granted, though De Bedros and a dozen of his daughters had demanded it.  ‘Calabressa,’ he said to me, ’it will do great mischief in England if it is known that we are connected with it.’  Well, you see, all this would be avoided if they closed with the Cardinal’s offer.”

“You are sanguine, Signor Calabressa,” said the other.

“Besides, the thirty thousand lire!"’ said Calabressa, eagerly.  “Do you know what that is?  Ah, you English have always too much money!”

“No doubt,” said Edwards, with a smile.  “We are all up to the neck in gold.”

“Thirty thousand lire a year, and the favor of the Vatican; what fools Granaglia and I were to laugh!  But perhaps we will find that the Council were wiser.”

They had now got out to Posilipo, and the stormy sunset had waned, leaving the sky overclouded and dusk.  Calabressa, having first looked up and down the road, stopped by the side of a high wall, over which projected a number of the broken, gray-green, spiny leaves of the cactus—­a hedge at the foot of the terrace above.

“Peste!” said he.  “How the devil is one to find it out in the dark?”

“Find what out?”

“My good friend,” said he, in a whisper, “you are not able by chance to see a bit of thread—­a bit of red thread—­tied round one of those big leaves?”

Edwards glanced up.

“Not I.”

“Ah, well, we must run the risk.  Perhaps by accident there may be a meeting.”

They walked on for some time, Calabressa becoming more and more watchful.  They paused to let a man driving a wagon and a pair of oxen go by; and then Calabressa, enjoining his companion to remain where he was, went on alone.

The changing sky had opened somewhat overhead, and there was a wan twilight shining through the parted clouds.  Edwards, looking after Calabressa, could have fancied that the dark figure had disappeared like a ghost; but the old albino had merely crossed the road, opened the one half of a huge gate, and entered a garden.

It was precisely like the gardens of the other villas along the highway—­cut in terraces along the steep side of the hill, with winding pathways, and marble lions here and there, and little groves of orange and olive and fig trees; while on one side the sheer descent was guarded by an enormous cactus hedge.  The ground was very unequal:  on one small plateau a fountain was playing—­the trickling of the water the only sound audible in the silence.