"Partly. Quite enough to----Don't let us speak about it any more."

"No. There's nothing more futile than imagining horrors that are never
coming upon us."

"I never do it," she said, with resolute cheerfulness. "But we shall
very soon have to say one 'farewell.'"

"To the Parthenon?"

"Yes."

"Say it to-night!"

She turned round to face him.

"To-night? Why?"

"For a little while."

A sudden happy idea had come to him. A shadow had fallen over her for
a moment. He wanted to drive it away, to set her again in the full
sunshine for which she was born, and in which, if he could have his
will, she should always dwell.

"You wanted to take me away somewhere."

"Yes. You must see a little more of Greece before we go home. Say your
'farewell,' Rosamund."

She did not know what was in his mind, but she obeyed him, and, looking
up at the great marble columns, glowing with honey-color and gold in the
afternoon light, she murmured:

"Farewell."

On the following day they left Athens and set out on the journey to
Olympia.

CHAPTER V

"Why are you bringing me to Olympia?"

That question, unuttered by her lips, was often in Rosamund's eyes as
they drew near to the green wilds of Elis. Of course they had always
meant to visit Olympia before they sailed away to England, but she knew
very well that Dion had some special purpose in his mind, and that it
was closely connected with his great love of her. She had understood
that on the Acropolis, and her "farewell" had been an act of submission
to his will not wholly unselfish. Her curiosity was awake.

What was the secret of Olympia?

They had gone by train to Patras, slept there, and thence rode
on horseback to Pyrgos through the vast vineyards of the
Peloponnesus--vineyards that stretched down to the sea and were dotted
with sentinel cypresses. The heat was much greater than it had been in
Athens. Enormous aloes hedged gardens from which came scents that seemed
warm. The sandy soil, turned up by the horses' feet, was hot to the
touch. The air quivered, and was shot with a music of insects faint but
pervasive.

Pyrgos was suffocating and noisy, but Rosamund was amused by democracy
at close quarters, showing its naked love of liberty. Her strong
humanity rose to the occasion, and she gave herself with a smiling
willingness to the streets, in which men, women, children and animals,
with lungs of leather, sent forth their ultimate music. Nevertheless,
she w