; he dozed a little, and awoke an hour after to
feel soft air upon the face, and to see a bush laden with blossom
literally singing the spring. Thenceforth at every mile the land grew
into more frequent bloom. The gray-green olive-tree appeared, a
crooked, twisted tree--habitual phase of the red land--and between
its foliage gray-green brick facades, burnt and re-burnt by the sun.
The roofs of the houses grew flatter and campanile, and the domes
rose, silvery or blue, in the dazzling day. A mountain shepherd,
furnished with water-gourd, a seven-foot staff, and a gigantic pipe,
lingered in the country railway-station. This shepherd's skin was
like coffee, and he wore hair hanging far over his shoulders, and his
beard reached to his waist.

Nice! A town of cheap fashion, a town of glass and stucco. The
pungent odour of the eucalyptus trees, the light breeze stirred not
the foliage, sheared into mathematical lines. It was like yards of
baize dwindling in perspective; and between the tall trunks great
plate-glass windows gleamed, filled with _l'article de Londres_.

He drove to the hotel from which Mrs. Byril had written, and learnt
that she had left yesterday, and that Mrs. and Miss Young were not
staying there. They had no such name on the books. Looking on the sea
and mountains he wondered himself what it all meant.

Having bathed and changed his clothes, he sallied forth in a cab to
call at every hotel in the town, and after three hours' fruitless
search, returned in despair. Never before had life seemed so sad;
never had fate seemed so cruel--he had come a thousand miles to
regenerate his life, and an accident, the accident of a departure,
hastened perhaps only by a day, had thrown him back on the past; he
had imagined a beautiful future made of love, goodness, and truth,
and he found himself thrown back upon the sterile shore of a past of
which he was weary, and of whose fruits he had eaten even to satiety.
After much effort he had made sure that nothing mattered but Lily,
neither wealth nor liberty, nor even his genius. In surrendering all
he would have gained all--peace of mind, unending love and goodness.
Goodness! that which he had never known, that which he now knew was
worth more than gratification of flesh and pride of spirit.

The night was full of tumult and dreams--dreams of palms, and seas,
and endless love, and in the morning he walked into the realities of
his imaginings.

Passing through an archway