r myself."

"Liar!" he cried petulantly, and then caught at her hand. "Forgive me!
Come now and read me a sonnet of your Keats and then translate it to
me."

Obediently she stooped to pick up the book. The flame of the little
lamp on the table at his side burned steadily.

He lay with closed eyes and lips that moved, repeating the words after
her. "It is very good to listen to your voice while you are here with
me alone under the stars," he said presently. "Tell me, does this man
love you?"

She was silent.

"Does he love you?"

"I think he did, but perhaps he has forgotten me now."

"I love you," the boy said deliberately.

"I cannot come again if you talk like this, Astorre."

"I shall never say it again," he answered, "but I want you to remember
that it is so, because it may comfort you. Such words never come amiss
to women. They feed on the hunger of our hearts."

"Don't say that!" she cried. "It is true that I like you to be fond of
me, and I love you. In the best way, Astorre--oh, do believe that it
is the best way!"

"With your soul, I suppose? Do you think I am an angel because I am a
cripple?" he asked bitterly.

"I am sorry--"

"Poor little girl," he said more gently, "I have hurt you instead of
comforting you, as I meant to do. But how can I give what is not mine?
How can I cry 'Peace,' when there is no peace? You will suffer still
when I am at rest."

The boy's mother put down her work presently and came out to them, and
the three sat silently watching the moon rise beyond the hills. It was
as though a veil had been withdrawn to show the glimmer of distant
streams, the white walls of peasant dwellings set among their vines,
the belfry tower of an old Carthusian monastery belted in by tall dark
cypresses, and the twisted shadows thrown by the gnarled trunks and
outstanding roots of the olive trees.

"All blue and silver," cried the girl after a while. "Thank God for
Italy!"

"She has cost her children dear," the elder woman answered, sighing.
"Beyond that rampart of hills lies the Maremma, and swamps, marshes,
forests are to be drained now, they say, and made profitable. You will
see some peasants from over there in our streets at the time of the
Palio. Poor souls! They are so lean and haggard and yellow that their
bones seem to be piercing through their discoloured skins."

"The Palio! I think Signor Lucis is coming to Siena to see it," Olive
said.

"Is that the man your cousin Gemm