anquil Tyrrhenian Sea would not
long be left to her.

It was evening when they rounded the terraced vineyards of Ischia. A
low red moon shone above the belching pinnacle of Vesuvius. Frank and
Durkin leaned over the rail together, as they drifted slowly up the
bay, the most beautiful bay in all the world, with its twilight sounds
of shipping, its rattle of anchor chains, its far-off cries and echoes,
and its watery, pungent Southern odors.

They watched the ship's officer put ashore to obtain _pratique_, and
the yellow flag come down, and heard the signal-bells of the
engine-room, as the officer returned, with a great cigar in one corner
of his bearded mouth.

There was nothing amiss. There were neither Carabinieri nor Guardie di
Pubblica Sicurezza to come on board with papers and cross-questions.
Before the break of day their discharged cargo would be in the lighters
and they would be steaming southward for the Straits of Messina.

That night, on the deserted deck, at anchor between the city and the
sea, they watched the glimmering lights of Naples, rising tier after
tier from the _Immacolatella Nuova_ and its ship lamps to the _Palazzo
di Capodimonte_ and its near-by _Osservatorio_. And when the lights of
the city thinned out and the crowning haze of gold melted from its
hillsides, with the advancing night, Frank and Durkin sat back in their
steamer-chairs and looked up at the stars, talking of Home, and of the
future.

Yet the beauty of that balmy and tranquil night seemed to bring little
peace of mind to Durkin. There were reasons, of late, when moments of
meditation were not always moments of contentment to him. His wife had
noticed that ever-increasing trouble of soul, and although she said
nothing of it, she had watched him narrowly and not altogether
despondently. For she knew that whatever the tumult or contest that
might be taking place within the high-walled arena of his own Ego, it
was a clash of forces of which she must remain merely a spectator. So
she went below, leaving him in that hour of passive yet troubled
thought, to stare up at the tranquil southern stars, as he meditated on
life, and the meaning of life, and what lay beyond it all. She knew
men and the world too well to look for any sudden and sweeping
reorganization of Durkin's disturbed and restless mind. But she nursed
the secret hope that out of that spiritual ferment would come some
ultimate clearness of vision.

It was late