ed dead whose
words, whose ways, whose face had reigned supreme over his heart for so
many years, when he caught himself dwelling on Barbara's words,
recalling her tricks of tone, her individual ways.

He set himself resolutely to the task of overcoming this singular
tendency of his thought; and oh! how the little blind (but all-seeing)
god of love had been laughing at Robert Sumner all through the days
since they reached Rome.

Instead of driving and walking about with the others, he had zealously
set himself the task of calling at the studios of all his artist
friends; had visited exhibitions; had gone hither and thither by
himself; and yet every time had hastened home, though he would not admit
it to his own consciousness, in order that he might know where Barbara
was, what she was doing, and how she was feeling. He had busied himself
in fitting up a sky-lighted room for a studio, where he resolved to
spend many morning hours, forgetting all else save his beloved
occupation; and the very first time he sat before his easel a sketch of
Barbara's face grew out of the canvas. The harder he tried to put her
from his thoughts, the less could he do so, and he grew restless and
unhappy.

Another cause of troubled, agitated feeling was his decision to return
to America and there make his home. In this he had not faltered, but it
oppressed him. He loved this Italy, with her soft skies, her fair,
smiling vineyards and bold mountain backgrounds, her romantic legends,
and, above all, her art-treasures. He had taken her as his
foster-mother. Her atmosphere stimulated him to work in those directions
his heart loved best. How would it be when he should be back again in
his native land? He had fought his battle; duty had told him to go
there; and when she had sounded the call, there could be no retreat for
him. But love and longing and memory and fear all harassed him. He had
as yet said nothing of this to his sister, but it weighed on him
continually. Taken all in all, Robert Sumner's life, which had been
keyed to so even a pitch, and to which all discord had been a stranger
for so many years, was sadly jarred and out of tune.

Of course Mrs. Douglas's keen sisterly eyes could not be blind to the
fact that something was troubling her brother. And it was such an
unusual thing to see signs of so prolonged disturbance in him that she
became anxious to know the cause. Still she could not speak of it first.
Intimate as they were, th