"Eleven months."
"Do you wish to stay much longer?"
"I see very plainly, Lettice, that, if I did want to stay, it would end in my being here alone. But I shall not let you travel by yourself. If your interest in Italy has gone, so has mine. We will start on Saturday."
Mrs. Hartley was sorely disappointed, and even angry with Lettice; but she thought that at any rate she ought not to talk with her until they were back again in London. And there was at least a hope that she would be more prudent a week hence than she was to-day.
As for Lettice, she found it very hard to wait. If she had been alone she would have left Florence within an hour of reading Sydney's letter, for her heart was on fire with impatience.
She did not speak to Brooke Dalton again, except in the presence of her friends; but after he and Edith had gone she wrote him another letter to the address which he had given them. In this letter she begged him, as kindly as she could, to consider her last answer as final. "Sydney's note," she said, "has only strengthened my decision. Indeed, it has made me ten times more decided. My heart is not mine to give. You will not expect that I should say more than this. The best thing I can hope from you is that you will judge me charitably, and that if others reproach me you will not join in the chorus."
Poor Brooke Dalton kissed the letter quietly, and said nothing about it; nor did he openly give utterance to the words which entered his mind in reference to Sydney's intervention. Mrs. Hartley silently resolved to see Sydney Campion as soon as she got back to London, and beg him to reason with Lettice, and, if possible, bring her to a better mind. But she was disappointed to find that Sydney was not in town. His marriage had taken place in September and he had gone to Scotland with his wife. She knew that he was on fairly good terms with Lettice, and had pressed her to be present at the wedding, also that Miss Pynsent had sent a very charming and affectionate letter to her future sister-in-law. But whether Lettice had written to him and told him of her intentions and opinions, Mrs. Hartley did not know.