cannot bear that there should be one shadow going
to him that I can take away. Cheiron, promise me you won't think hardly
ever any more--promise me, Cheiron, dear!"

The Professor's voice was almost the growl of a bear--but Halcyone knew
he meant to acquiesce.

"Cheiron," she whispered, while she caressed his stiff fingers, "the
winter of our souls is almost past. I feel and know the spring is near
at hand."

"I hope to God it is," Mr. Carlyon said, very low.

Next day they moved on into Italy, crossing the frontier and stopping
the night at Turin where they proposed to hire a motor. From thence they
intended to get down to Genoa to continue their pilgrimage. It was not
such an easy matter, in those few years ago, as it is now to hire a
motor, but one was promised to them at last--and off they started.
Halcyone took the greatest interest in everything in that quaint and
grand old town. Her keen judgment and that faculty she possessed of
always seeing everything from the simplest standpoint of truth made her
an ideal companion to wander with on this journey of cultured ease.

"How strong a place this seems, Cheiron," she said, after two days of
their sight-seeing. "All the spirits at the zenith of Genoa's greatness
were strong--nothing weak or ascetic. They must have been filled with
gratitude to God for giving them this beautiful life, those old patrons
of decoration. There is nothing cheap or hurried; it is all an
appreciation of the magnificence due to their noble station and their
pride of race. For the _Guelphist_ of them seems to have been an
aristocrat and an autocrat in his personal _menage_. Is it not so,
Master?"

"I dare say," agreed Cheiron. He was watching with deep interest for her
verdict upon things.

"It gives me the impression of solid riches," she went on, "the
encouragement of looms of costly stuffs, the encouragement for workers
in marble, in bronze, in frescoes, all the material gorgeous, tangible
pleasures of sight and touch. It is not poetic; it inspires admiration
for great deeds, victorious navies, triumphs--banquets--I have no sense
of music here except the music of feasting. I have no sense of poetry
except of odes to famous admirals or party leaders, and yet it is a
great joy in its way and a noble monument to the proud manhood of the
past." And she looked down from the balcony of the Palazzo Reale, where
they were standing, into the town below.

Her thoughts had gone as ever to th