l go to Naples to-morrow; I shall spend one day there; on the day
after I shall be with you again. My hand upon it, Mallard. I promise!"

He did so with energy. And for the moment Mallard was the truer
fatalist.

Again they left the inn, this time going seaward. Still in rain, they
walked towards Minori, along the road which is cut in the
mountain-side, high above the beach. They talked about the massive
strongholds which stand as monuments of the time when the coast-towns
were in fear of pirates. Melancholy brooded upon land and sea; the
hills of Calabria, yesterday so blue and clear, had vanished like a
sunny hope.

The morrow revealed them again. But again for Mallard there had passed
a night of much misery. On rising, he durst not speak, so bitter was he
made by Elgar's singing and whistling. Yet he would not have eared to
prevent the journey to Naples, had it been in his power. He was sick of
Elgar's company; he wished for solitude. When his eyes fell on the
materials of his art, he turned away in disgust.

"You'll get to work as soon as I'm gone," cried Reuben, cheerfully.

"Yes."

He said it to avoid conversation.

"Cheer up, old man! I shall not disappoint you this time. You have my
promise."

"Yes."

A two-horse carriage was at the door. Mallard looked at it from the
balcony, and was direly tempted. No fear of his yielding, however, It
was not his fate to scamper whither desire pointed him.

"I have already begun to work out an idea," said Elgar, as he
breakfasted merrily. "I woke in the night, and it came to me as I heard
the bell striking. My mind is always active when I am travelling; ten
to one I shall come back ready to begin to write. I fear there's no
decent ink purchasable in Amalfi; I mustn't forget that. By-the-bye, is
there anything I can bring you?"

"Nothing, thanks."

They went down together, shook hands, and away drove the carriage. At
the public fountain in the little piazza, where stands the image of
Sant' Andrea, a group of women were busy or idling, washing clothes and
vegetables and fish, drawing water in vessels of beautiful shape,
chattering incessantly--such a group as may have gathered there any
morning for hundreds of years. Children darted after the vehicle with
their perpetual cry of "Un sord', signor!" and Elgar royally threw to
them a handful of coppers, looking back to laugh as they scrambled.

A morning of mornings, deliciously fresh after the rain, the air
exqui