ince those days, except that the tiles
of the roofs, which are now dark gray with age, were then red and
brilliant. But the cypress trees still surround the monasteries, and the
high hills are still crowned with castellos, while the fields make a
patchwork of different crops of olives and vines and grain.

John Derringham mounted the stairs with his head down, musing bitterly,
so that, until he reached the top, he was not aware that a slender
girl's figure was seated upon the old stone bench which runs round the
wall. Her hat lay upon the seat beside her, while she gazed out over the
beautiful world. He paused with a wildly beating heart in which joy and
agony fought for mastery, but, as she turned to see who this stranger
could be, thus breaking in upon her solitude, his voice, hoarse with
emotion, said aloud her name:

"Halcyone!"

She started to her feet, and then sank back upon the bench again
unsteadily, and he came forward to her side. They both realized that
they were alone here in the sunset--alone upon this summit of the world.

He sat down beside her and then he buried his face in his hands, letting
his cap fall; and all the pent-up misery and anguish of the past weeks
seemed to vibrate in his voice as he murmured:

"Ah, God!--my love!"

Her soft eyes melted upon him in deepest tenderness and sorrow. To see
him so pale and shattered, so changed from the splendid lover she had
known!

But he was there--beside her--and what mattered anything else? She
longed to comfort him and tend him with fond care. Had he been the
veriest outcast he would ever have found boundless welcome and solace
waiting for him in her loving heart.

"John!" she whispered, and put out gentle fingers and caressed his hair.

He shivered and let his hands fall from his haggard face.

"Darling," he said, "I am not worthy to touch the hem of your garment.
Why do you not turn from such a weakling and brute?"

"Hush! Hush," she exclaimed, aghast. "You must not speak so of yourself.
I love you always, as you know, and I cannot hear him whom I love
abused."

And now he looked into her eyes while he took her slender hand, and
there he saw the same wells of purity and devotion brimming with divine
faith and tenderness that he had last seen glistening with happy love.

He folded her to his heart; the passionate emotion each was feeling was
too deep, too sacred for words; and then their eyes streamed with
scorching tears.

They sat th