In the gardens of the Villa Panormi, Gwen Howard-Russell was walking up and down by herself one morning, a few days later, among the winter flowers (for it was now January), when she saw a figure she fancied she could recognise entering cautiously at the main gate by the high road to the Ponte Molle. Why, yes, she couldn\'t be mistaken. It was certainly the woman Cecca, the beautiful model down at Mr. Colin Churchill\'s studio! How very extraordinary and mysterious! What on earth could she be coming here for?

Gwen walked quickly down to meet the girl, who stood half hesitating in the big central avenue, and asked her curiously what she wanted.

\'Signorina,\' Cecca answered, not unrespectfully, \'I wish to speak with you a few minutes in private.\'

Gwen was surprised and amused at this proposal, but not in the least disconcerted. How deliciously Italian and romantic! Mr. Churchill had sent her a letter, no doubt—perhaps a declaration—and he had employed the beautiful model to be the naturally appropriate bearer of it. There\'s something in the very air of Rome that somehow lends itself spontaneously to these delightful mystifications. In London, now, his letter would have been delivered in the ordinary course of business by the common postman! How much more poetical, and antique, and romantic, to send it round by the veritable hands of his own beautiful imaginary Wood Nymph!

\'Come this way,\' she said, in her imperious English fashion; 41 will speak with you down here in the bower.\'

Cecca followed her to the bower in silence, for she resented our brusque insular manners: and somewhat to Gwen\'s surprise when she reached the bower, she seated herself like an equal upon the bench beside her. These Italians have no idea of the natural distinctions between the various social classes.

\'Well,\' Gwen asked, after a moment\'s pause. \'What do you want to say to me? Have you brought me any message or letter?\'

\'No, signorina,\' the girl answered somewhat maliciously. \'Nothing: nothing. I come to speak to you of my own accord solely.\'

There was another short pause, as though Cecca expected the English lady to make some further inquiry: but as Gwen said nothing, Cecca began again: \'I want to tell you something, signorina. You know the little English governess, the master\'s cousin?\'

\'Yes, I know her. That is to say, I have met her.\'

\'Well, I have come to tell you something about her. She is a fisherman\'s daughter, as I am, and she was brought up, far away, in a village in England, together with the master.\'

\'I know all about her,\' Gwen answered somewhat coldly. \'She was a servant afterwards at a house in London, and then she became a teacher in a school, and finally a governess. I have heard all that before, from a friend of mine in England.\'

\'But I have something else to tell you about her,\' Cecca continued with unusual self-restraint for an Italian woman. \'Something else that concerns you personally. She was brought up with the master, and she used to play with him in the meadows, when she was a child, where he made her little images of the Madonna in clay; and that was how he first of all began to be a sculptor. Then she followed him from her village to a city: and there he learned to be more of a sculptor. By-and-by, he came to Rome: but still, the little signorina loved him and wished to follow him. And at last she did follow him, because she loved him. And the master loves her, too, and is very fond of her. That is all that I have to tell you.\'

She kept her eye fixed steadily on Gwen while she spoke, and watched in her cat-like fashion to see whether the simple story was telling home, as she meant it to do, to Gwen\'s intelligence. As she uttered the words she saw Gwen\'s face grow suddenly scarlet, and she knew she had rightly effected her intended purpose. She had struck the right chord in Gwen\'s pride, and Minna now would have nothing more to fear from the tall Englishwoman. \'Safer than the poison,\' she thought to herself reflectively, \'and as it happens, every bit as useful and effectual, without half the trouble or danger.\'

Gwen looked at her steadily and without flinching. \'Why do you say all this to me?\' she asked haughtily.

\'Because I knew it closely concerned you,\' Cecca replied, in her coolest tone: \'and I see from your face, too, signorina, whatever you choose to say, that I was not mistaken.\'

And indeed, in that one moment, the whole truth about Minna and Colin, never before even suspected by her, had flashed suddenly across Gwen\'s mind with the most startling vividness. She saw it all now, as clear as daylight. How could she ever have been foolish enough for a moment not to have understood it? Colin Churchill didn\'t make love to her for the very best of all possible reasons, because he was already in love with another person: and that other person was nobody else but the little governess with the old-fashioned bonnet. She reeled a little at the suddenness of the revelation, but she managed somehow or other to master her confusion and even to assume externally a careless demeanour.

\'But what interest have you in telling me this?\' she asked again of Cecca haughtily.

\'Because I like the little signorina,\' Cecca answered quite truthfully, \'and I was anxious to do anything on earth I could to serve her.\'
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