not leave you. You are going home," he said
quietly, and mounted after her. The guard stared at them, the bell
clanged sadly and the train moved out of the station. The play, you
see, was well along.

PART TWO

IN WHICH THE SPRING FLOWS IN A LITTLE STREAM

O father, mother, let me be,
Never again shall I have rest.
For as I lay beside the sea,
A woman walked the waves to me,
And stole the heart out of my breast.

_Sir Hugh and the Mermaiden._

CHAPTER V

ROGER FINDS THE ISLAND

It goes without saying that I have a retentive memory. Of course I
depend very largely upon it for all the small details that Roger has
from time to time vouchsafed me in regard to his relations with
Margarita, or I could not very well be writing these idle memories,
but Roger was always a poor writer--that is to say, so far as comment
and amplification and variety of manner may be supposed to make a good
one. Witness the following letter, which I received in answer to my
plea for details of that strange night journey from New York to
Margarita's town. It left a gap in my story of which I never happened
to receive any account, and it seemed to me a fairly important gap,
though you will see that this was not Roger's view of it.

DEAR JERRY:

It is rather late in the day to ask me about that trip to
----. We hardly spoke for a long time, as I am sure I have
told you before--either of us. There was no berth to be had
for her and no drawing-room car on, so we rode all night in
the day coach with a rather mixed lot. I remember they
snored and it amused her. She wanted to wake them up and I
had to speak sharply to prevent her. The air got very bad
and I took her out on the platform for a while. I remember
there were any amount of stars and the moon out, too. You
know she never talked much. About one o'clock we got to
S---- and changed cars for a few minutes' wait.... I think
it was then that she asked me abruptly what I meant by a
"convent." She said it in French and I saw that she spoke
and understood the language, but only in a simple, childish
sort of way. I told her it was a big school. "What is that?"
she said.... There were a number of Italians on the train,
and they were chattering like magpies, but she paid no
attention to them, and I was sure she did not understand
them. At ---- we got out