“Perhaps she is unhappy,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot.

“Whatever it is she is she’ll get over it here,” said Mrs. Wilkins with conviction.

“We must try and help her,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot.

“Oh, but nobody helps anybody in heaven.  That’s finished with.  You don’t try to be, or do.  You simply are.”

Well, Mrs. Arbuthnot wouldn’t go into that—­not here, not to-day.  The vicar, she knew, would have called Lotty’s talk levity, if not profanity.  How old he seemed from here; an old, old vicar.

They left the path, and clambered down the olive terraces, down and down, to where at the bottom the warm, sleepy sea heaved gently among the rocks.  There a pine-tree grew close to the water, and they sat under it, and a few yards away was a fishing-boat lying motionless and green-bellied on the water.  The ripples of the sea made little gurgling noises at their feet.  They screwed up their eyes to be able to look into the blaze of light beyond the shade of their tree.  The hot smell from the pine-needles and from the cushions of wild thyme that padded the spaces between the rocks, and sometimes a smell of pure honey from a clump of warm irises up behind them in the sun, puffed across their faces.  Very soon Mrs. Wilkins took her shoes and stocking off, and let her feet hang in the water.  After watching her a minute Mrs. Arbuthnot did the same.  Their happiness was then complete.  Their husbands would not have known them.  They left off talking.  They ceased to mention heaven.  They were just cups of acceptance.

Meanwhile Lady Caroline, on her wall, was considering her position.  The garden on the top of the wall was a delicious garden, but its situation made it insecure and exposed to interruptions.  At any moment the others might come and want to use it, because both the hall and the dining-room had doors opening straight into it.  Perhaps, thought Lady Caroline, she could arrange that it should be solely hers.  Mrs. Fisher had the battlements, delightful with flowers, and a watch-tower all to herself, besides having snatched the one really nice room in the house.  There were plenty of places the originals could go to—­she had herself seen at least two other little gardens, while the hill the castle stood on was itself a garden, with walks and seats.  Why should not this one spot be kept exclusively for her?  She liked it; she liked it best of all.  It had the Judas tree and an umbrella pine, it had the freesias and the lilies, it had a tamarisk beginning to flush pink, it had the convenient low wall to sit on, it had from each of its three sides the most amazing views—­to the east the bay and mountains, to the north the village across the tranquil clear green water of the little harbour and the hills dotted with white houses and orange groves, and to the west was the thin thread of land by which San Salvatore was tied to the mainland, and then the open sea and the coast line beyond Genoa reaching away into the