the first time since she
had reached the Villa Accolanti that she was alone, and very far away
from home.

CHAPTER XVII

San Pietro and Bertuccio were waiting at the doorway, both blinking
sleepily in the morning air. At San Pietro's right side hung a tiny
pannier, covered by a fringed white napkin, above which lay a small
flask decorated with corn husk and gay yarn, where red wine sparkled
like rubies in the sunshine. The varying degrees of the donkey's
resignation were registered exactly in the changing angles at which his
right ear was cocked.

"Pronta!" called Assunta, who was putting the finishing touches on
saddle and luncheon basket. "If the Signorina means to climb the Monte
Altiera she must start before the sun is high."

On the hillside above Daphne heard, but her feet strayed only more
slowly. She was wandering with a face like that of a sky across which
thin clouds scud, in the grass about Hermes' grave. In her hand was the
letter of yesterday, and in her eyes the memory of the days before.

"It is all too late," said Daphne, who had learned to talk aloud in
this world where no one understood. "The Greeks were right in thinking
that our lives are ruled by mocking fate. I wonder what angry goddess
cast forgetfulness upon my mind, so that I forgot to tell Apollo what
this letter says."

Daphne looked to the open sky, but it gave no answer, and she paused by
the laurel tree with head bent down. Then, with a sudden, wistful
little laugh, she held out the letter and fastened it to the laurel,
tearing a hole in one corner to let a small bare twig go through. With
a blunt pencil she scribbled on it in large letters: "Let Apollo read,
if he ever wanders this way."

"He will never find it," said the girl, "and the rain will come and
soak it, and it will bleach in the sun. But nobody else knows enough
to read it, and I shall leave it there on his sacred tree, as my last
offering. I suppose there is some saving grace even in the sacrifices
that go astray."

Then she descended the hill, climbed upon San Pietro's back, and rode
through the gateway.

An hour later, Assunta, going to find a spade in the tool-house, for
she was transplanting roses, came upon the Signorina's caller of
yesterday standing near the tool-house with something in his hand. The
peasant woman's face showed neither awe nor fear; only lively curiosity
gleamed in the blinking brown eyes.

"Buon' giorno," said Apollo, exact