“It seems like an age since we first came here, doesn’t it, Bab, dear?” said Bettina, as they entered together the spacious waiting-room of the central railroad station.

“Yes, Betty; are we the same girls?” answered Barbara, and her smile had just a touch of dreariness.

Mr. Sumner and Malcom were seeing to the weighing of the luggage; Mrs. Douglas, Margery, and Miss Sherman were together; and for a moment the two girls were alone.

Somehow Bettina felt a peculiarly tender care of her sister just now, and was never absent from her side if she could help it.  Without understanding why or what it was, she yet felt that something had happened which put a slight barrier between them; that something in which she had no share had touched Barbara.  She had been wistfully watching her ever since she had returned from the visit to Howard, and was striving to keep all opportunity for painful thought from her.

At present, Barbara shrank from telling even Bettina, from whom she had never before hidden a thought, of that last meeting with Howard.  No girl could ever mistake such a look as that which had lighted his eyes as she stooped to kiss his brow in answer to Mrs. Douglas’s request.  There would be no need for Mrs. Douglas ever to tell her the story.  The loving devotion that shone forth even in his uttermost weakness had thrilled her very soul, and she could not forget it for a moment when alone.

A certain sense of loss which she could not define followed her.  Somehow, it did mean more to her than it did to any one else, that Howard was gone from their lives, but she knew that not even Betty would understand.  Indeed, she could not herself understand, for she was sure that she had not loved Howard.

Though Barbara did not know it, the truth was that for a single instant she had felt what it is to be loved as Howard loved her; and the loss she felt was the loss of love,—­not Howard’s love—­but love for itself alone.  She was not just the same girl she was when she had entered Florence a few months ago, nor ever again would be; and between her and Bettina,—­the sisters who before this had been “as one soul in two bodies,”—­ran a mysterious Rubicon, the outer shore of which Bettina’s feet had not yet touched.

The hasty return of Mr. Sumner and Malcom with two lusty facchini, who seized the hand-luggage, the hurry to be among the first at the opening of the big doors upon the platform beside which their train was drawn up, and the little bustle of excitement consequent on the desire to secure an entire compartment for their party filled the next few minutes, and soon they were off.

The journey led through a charming country lying at the base of the Apennines.  Picturesque castles and city-crowned hills against the background of blue mountains, many of whose summits were covered with gleaming snow, kept them looking and exclaiming with delight, until finally they reached Lucca, and, sweeping in a half circle around Monte San Giuliano, which, as Dante wrote, hides the two cities, Lucca and Pisa, from each other, they arrived at Pisa.