Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/291

 Hilda; and people do talk so horridly here for nothing at all; and Italians are not so scrupulous as we are."

He went home in haste, and was told that Miladi had retired to bed fall two hours before. In the morning he sent to ask when he could see her. She sent back word that she should be happy to see him at breakfast at twelve. At ten he received a telegram from his wife asking him to return, because his eldest boy, Cheviot, was unwell, and they feared typhoid fever.

"Damn it all, what a worry!" said Lord Clairvaux to himself, and then went out and smoked on the bank of the river, and looked over the stone parapet moodily.

"Bon-jour, monsieur," a voice said, passing him.

Della Rocca was driving past with a fiery little horse on his way to Palestrina. Lord Clairvaux felt inclined to stop the horse; but what could he say if he did?

What a nuisance it was, he thought; but what could go right in a country where they shot their foxes, and called their brushes tails, and