costly gift from the children--she had guessed from the beginning
whence it came.

And then slowly, even with reverence, she folded the letter up, and rose.
Her smile became a little tremulous. It had been a day of many troubles,
and she was very tired. The boy's adoration was strangely sweet to her
wearied senses. She felt subtly softened and tender towards him.

No, it must not be! It could not be! He must forget her. She would write
to-morrow and tell him so. Yet for that one night the charm held her.
She viewed from afar an enchanted land--a land of sunshine and singing
birds--a land where it was always spring. It was a country she had seen
before, but only in her dreams. Her feet had never wandered there. The
path she had followed had not led to it. Perhaps it was all a mirage.
Perhaps there was no path.

Yet in her dreams she crossed the boundary, and entered the
forbidden land.

CHAPTER XXII

THE COMING OF A FRIEND

"Eternal sunshine!" said Piers, with a grimace at the deep, deep blue
of the slumbering water that stretched below him to the horizon. "And
at night eternal moonshine. Romantic but monotonous. I wonder if the
post is in."

He cast an irresolute glance up the path behind him, but decided to
remain where he was. He had looked so many times in vain.

There were a good many people in the hotel, but he was not feeling
sociable. The night before he had dropped a considerable sum at the
Casino, but it had not greatly interested him. Regretfully he had come to
the conclusion that gambling in that form did not attract him. The greedy
crowd that pushed and strove in the heated rooms, he regarded as
downright revolting. He himself had been robbed with astonishing audacity
by a lady with painted eyes who had snatched his only winnings before he
could reach them. It was a small episode, and he had let it pass, but it
had not rendered the tables more attractive. He had in fact left them in
utter disgust.

Altogether he was feeling decidedly out of tune with his surroundings
that morning, and the beauty of the scene irritated rather than soothed
him. In the garden a short distance from him, a voluble French party were
chattering with great animation and a good deal of cackling laughter. He
wondered what on earth they found to amuse them so persistently. He also
wondered if a swim in that faultless blue would do anything to improve
his temper, and decided with another wry grimace that it was hardly