Philip began to see that there were two Miss Abbotts—­the Miss Abbott who could travel alone to Monteriano, and the Miss Abbott who could not enter Gino’s house when she got there.  It was an amusing discovery.  Which of them would respond to his next move?

“I suppose I misunderstood Perfetta.  Where did you have your interview, then?”

“Not an interview—­an accident—­I am very sorry—­I meant you to have the chance of seeing him first.  Though it is your fault.  You are a day late.  You were due here yesterday.  So I came yesterday, and, not finding you, went up to the Rocca—­you know that kitchen-garden where they let you in, and there is a ladder up to a broken tower, where you can stand and see all the other towers below you and the plain and all the other hills?”

“Yes, yes.  I know the Rocca; I told you of it.”

“So I went up in the evening for the sunset:  I had nothing to do.  He was in the garden:  it belongs to a friend of his.”

“And you talked.”

“It was very awkward for me.  But I had to talk:  he seemed to make me.  You see he thought I was here as a tourist; he thinks so still.  He intended to be civil, and I judged it better to be civil also.”

“And of what did you talk?”

“The weather—­there will be rain, he says, by tomorrow evening—­the other towns, England, myself, about you a little, and he actually mentioned Lilia.  He was perfectly disgusting; he pretended he loved her; he offered to show me her grave—­the grave of the woman he has murdered!”

“My dear Miss Abbott, he is not a murderer.  I have just been driving that into Harriet.  And when you know the Italians as well as I do, you will realize that in all that he said to you he was perfectly sincere.  The Italians are essentially dramatic; they look on death and love as spectacles.  I don’t doubt that he persuaded himself, for the moment, that he had behaved admirably, both as husband and widower.”

“You may be right,” said Miss Abbott, impressed for the first time.  “When I tried to pave the way, so to speak—­to hint that he had not behaved as he ought—­well, it was no good at all.  He couldn’t or wouldn’t understand.”

There was something very humorous in the idea of Miss Abbott approaching Gino, on the Rocca, in the spirit of a district visitor.  Philip, whose temper was returning, laughed.

“Harriet would say he has no sense of sin.”

“Harriet may be right, I am afraid.”

“If so, perhaps he isn’t sinful!”

Miss Abbott was not one to encourage levity.  “I know what he has done,” she said.  “What he says and what he thinks is of very little importance.”

Philip smiled at her crudity.  “I should like to hear, though, what he said about me.  Is he preparing a warm reception?”

“Oh, no, not that.  I never told him that you and Harriet were coming.  You could have taken him by surprise if you liked.  He only asked for you, and wished he hadn’t been so rude to you eighteen months ago.”