and deny their attraction, but Sandro sees no sense in sacrificing anything. Still focused on her friend's disappearance, Claudia is troubled by the thought that it "takes so little to change". Sandro relents and gets off the train at Castroreale. In Messina, Sandro tracks down the journalist Zuria, who wrote an article about Anna's disappearance. Their meeting is interrupted by crowds of excited men following a beautiful 19-year-old "writer" and aspiring actress named Gloria Perkins (Dorothy De Poliolo) who is actually an expensive prostitute. Sandro stops to admire her beauty. Zuria says he heard stories that Anna was spotted by a chemist in Troina. After bribing Zuria to run another story on Anna, Sandro heads to Troina. Meanwhile, Claudia meets her boating companions at Corrado's Villa Montaldo in Palermo. No one seems to take Anna's disappearance seriously except Claudia. Even Corrado's young wife Giulia openly flirts with the young prince in front of her husband. After reading Zuria's follow-up story, Claudia leaves the villa for Troina to continue her search. In Troina, Sandro questions the chemist who claimed to have sold tranquilizers to Anna. Claudia arrives, and they learn that the woman identified by the chemist left on a bus to Noto in southern Sicily. Sandro and Claudia resume their search together and drive south. Outside Noto, they stop at a deserted village, and then find a hill overlooking the town where they make love while a train goes by. Later in town, they go to the Trinacria Hotel where they believe Anna is staying. Claudia asks Sandro to go in alone. While Claudia waits outside, a crowd of men gather around her. When she thinks she sees Sandro and Anna coming down the stairs she runs into a paint store, but Sandro follows and confirms that Anna is not there. Claudia remains torn between her feelings for Sandro and her friendship with Anna. At the Chiesa del Collegio, a nun shows them the view from the roof. Sandro talks about his disappointments with his work, far removed from his youthful ambitions as an architect. Suddenly he asks Claudia to marry him, but she says no—things are too complicated. She accidentally tugs on a rope that rings the church bells, which are answered by connected church bells at another church. Claudia is delighted by the sounds. The next morning, she wakes in a joyful mood, dancing and singing in the