“Here are English letters.”
“Oh, let them wait.”
She spoke from the door, and looked back to kiss her hand before running down the grey stone staircase, and calling one of the little open carriages with which Rome abounds. They are cheap enough, but she rarely indulged in such luxuries, for the marchese, her husband, had squandered what he could of her small fortune, and her grandmother’s income was ridiculously inadequate to all that she contrived to do with it. Just now, however, Teresa would not have begrudged a larger outlay, for she was on thorns at the idea of having committed an injustice. She searched the pavements anxiously for Wilbraham, but had gone down the crowded Tritone, and passed the Trevi, before she caught sight of him. She stopped the carriage, stepped out, and dismissed it, even at this moment amusedly conscious of Wilbraham’s startled face.
“Well?” she asked quickly.
“I have done all that’s necessary,” he answered with a touch of stiffness. “I don’t think there’s anything more wanted. I worked them up to send to the man’s house, and if he hasn’t bolted, he’ll be arrested.”
“Oh,” cried Teresa despairingly, “then I am too late!”
“Too late? What for?”
“To spare him the disgrace. What he said was true—isn’t it awful? Sylvia saw him pick up the purse, which, of course, the real thief had thrown away. I am so sorry they have sent. Let us go at once.”
Wilbraham did not look pleased. He hated scenes, and still more hated women to be mixed up in them. There was no help for it, however, for Teresa was already walking rapidly in the direction from whence he had come, and of course he had to stick to her.
“They don’t think much of your friend at the questura,” he said drily.