At that moment a grille was slid back, and a face, framed by a severe white wimple, appeared. I heard a gasp from the girls.

“Dominus vobiscum,” the woman said.

“Siamo il Gruppo dale scuola dall’Inghiterra.” I had practiced phrases I thought we might need, and this one came out convincingly.

“Ah, va bene.” The woman nodded. “Enter, please.”

The door creaked open slowly, and we stepped into a small courtyard. High walls rose on all sides, blocking out the sunlight.

“Wait ’ere, please,” the nun said in stumbling English, then disappeared into a doorway, her long skirts swishing on the ground. After a minute or so, another nun appeared. This one was younger and actually smiling.

“Welcome, dear girls,” she said. “I am Sister Immaculata. I am your hostess. I show you your rooms. Please to follow.”

“Actually, we are all very thirsty,” I said. “There was no dining car on the train.”

The nun looked puzzled.

“No drink on train. Very thirsty. Siamo assetati.”

“Ah.” The nun nodded. “Is too late for breakfast. All put away, I am afraid. I bring water to your rooms, sì ?”

“Will it be bottled water?” Miss Frobisher demanded, putting herself between the nun and me. “It is essential that we drink bottled water only. The girls must not get sick.”

“If bottled water, you must pay,” the nun said.

“Very well. We will pay for bottled water, but please have some sent up to us. And at what time is luncheon? The girls are also very hungry.”

“Luncheon is at one o’clock,” the nun said. Then her face softened. “I send up bread and fruit to you. Va bene?”

“Sì , va bene.” I returned her smile.

We were led up a steep and narrow stone staircase. The girls were in rooms with two sets of bunk beds. Miss Frobisher and I were to share a twin-bedded room. The bathroom was down the hall—simple but clean. I looked around the room, spartan in the extreme with whitewashed stone walls, two narrow iron-framed beds, on which there was a white sheet but no coverlet, and a large cross on the wall above. I noticed with amusement that the window was barred, and I was immediately taken back to ten years before. I remembered so clearly looking down and seeing Leo’s face smiling up at me from his boat, his arms stretched out to me as he urged me to come down. Was he still in Venice? Of course he would be. His family had been here since the Middle Ages. And he’d be married by now. Married and settled and happy, the way I had expected to be.

There was no canal below this window. Only a narrow street. A house with window boxes of geraniums, and behind the houses the rising roof of a church. No glimpse of the Grand Canal. And I couldn’t climb out of this window anyway.

“I suppose this is adequate, Miss Browning,” Miss Frobisher said. “At least it’s clean. And safe. Nobody could climb in through that window.”