in the white ashes. He swept a mass
of papers and dusty books from the table, and with trembling hands
cowered over the embers, until he succeeded in lighting the dry tinder.
Then he piled the old books on the blaze, and looked fearfully around.

No: It was gone,--thank God for that; the hook was empty.

But why did Otto sleep so soundly; why did he not awake?

He stepped unsteadily across the room in the flaring light of the
burning books, and knelt by the mattress.

* * * * *

So they found him in the morning, when no one came to the inn from
Kropfsberg Keep, and the quaking Peter Rosskopf arranged a relief
party;--found him kneeling beside the mattress where Otto lay, shot in
the throat and quite dead.

THE WHITE VILLA.

The White Villa.

When we left Naples on the 8.10 train for Paestum, Tom and I, we fully
intended returning by the 2.46. Not because two hours time seemed enough
wherein to exhaust the interests of those deathless ruins of a dead
civilization, but simply for the reason that, as our _Indicatore_
informed us, there was but one other train, and that at 6.11, which
would land us in Naples too late for the dinner at the Turners and the
San Carlo afterwards. Not that I cared in the least for the dinner or
the theatre; but then, I was not so obviously in Miss Turner's good
graces as Tom Rendel was, which made a difference.

However, we had promised, so that was an end of it.

This was in the spring of '88, and at that time the railroad, which was
being pushed onward to Reggio, whereby travellers to Sicily might be
spared the agonies of a night on the fickle Mediterranean, reached no
farther than Agropoli, some twenty miles beyond Paestum; but although the
trains were as yet few and slow, we accepted the half-finished road with
gratitude, for it penetrated the very centre of Campanian brigandage,
and made it possible for us to see the matchless temples in safety,
while a few years before it was necessary for intending visitors to
obtain a military escort from the Government; and military escorts are
not for young architects.

So we set off contentedly, that white May morning, determined to make
the best of our few hours, little thinking that before we saw Naples
again we were to witness things that perhaps no American had ever seen
before.

For a moment, when we left the train at "Pesto," and started to walk up
the flowery lane leading to the temple