had
completely died away. I adored the peace in which my days were passed.
I looked at the flowers and compared my happiness with theirs. They
blossomed, bloomed, faded, died in the garden. So would I wish to
blossom, bloom, fade--when my time came--die in the garden--always
in peace, always in safety, always isolated from the terrors of life,
always under the tender watchful eye of--of--Domini, that day I was
happy, as perhaps they are--perhaps--the saints in Paradise. I was happy
because I felt no inclination to evil. I felt as if my joy lay entirely
in being innocent. Oh, what an ecstasy such a feeling is! 'My will
accord with Thy design--I love to live as Thou intendest me to live! Any
other way of life would be to me a terror, would bring to me despair.'

"And I felt that--intensely I felt it at that moment in heart and
soul. It was as if I had God's arms round me, caressing me as a father
caresses his child."

He moved away a step or two in the sand, came back, and went on with an
effort:

"Within a few minutes the porter of the monastery came through the
archway of the arcade followed by a young man. As I looked up at him
I was uncertain of his nationality. But I scarcely thought about
it--except in the first moment. For something else seized my
attention--the intense, active misery in the stranger's face. He looked
ravaged, eaten by grief. I said he was young--perhaps twenty-six or
twenty-seven. His face was rather dark-complexioned, with small, good
features. He had thick brown hair, and his eyes shone with intelligence,
with an intelligence that was almost painful--somehow. His eyes always
looked to me as if they were seeing too much, had always seen too much.
There was a restlessness in the swiftness of their observation. One
could not conceive of them closed in sleep. An activity that must surely
be eternal blazed in them.

"The porter left the stranger in the archway. It was now my duty to
attend to him. I welcomed him in French. He took off his hat. When
he did that I felt sure he was an Englishman--by the look of him
bareheaded--and I told him that I spoke English as well as French. He
answered that he was at home in French, but that he was English. We
talked English. His entrance into the garden had entirely destroyed
my sense of its peace--even my own peace was disturbed at once by his
appearance.

"I felt that I was in the presence of a misery that was like a devouring
element. Before we had tim