que toils, weeds which
had started to destroy, but remained to adorn with all the sweet abandon
of unrestrained growth. Some of them had put forth brilliant blossoms
of many hues, little spots of exquisite coloring against the sombre hue
of the stonework and the deep green of the leaves. Everywhere nature had
triumphed over science and skill. Everything was changed, and nature had
shown herself a more perfect gardener than man. The gravel paths were
embedded with soft green moss, studded with clumps of white and purple
violets, whose faint fragrance, mingled with the more exotic scent of
other plants, filled the warm air with a peculiar dreamy perfume.
Nowhere had the hand of man sought to restrain or to develop. Nature had
had her own way, and had made for herself a fair garden.

A little overcome by the heat, and a little, too, by swiftly stirring
memories, Bernard Maddison sank down upon a low iron seat, under the
shade of a little clump of almond trees, and covered his face with his
hands. And there came to him, as he sat there, something more vivid than
an ordinary day-dream, something so real and minutely played out, that
afterwards it possessed for him all the freshness and significance of a
veritable trance. It seemed, indeed, as if some mysterious force had
drawn aside the curtain of the past in his mind, and had bidden him look
out once more upon the moving figures in a living drama.

* * * * *

The warm sunlight faded from the sky, the summer heat died out of the
air, the soft velvety mantle of a southern night lay upon the brooding
land. Many stars were burning in the deep-blue heavens, and the horned
moon, golden and luminous, hung low down in the west.

Pale, and with the fever of a great anger burning in his dry eyes, a
man sat at the open window of the villa yonder, watching. Around him
were scattered all the signs of arduous brain labor, books, manuscripts,
classical dictionaries, and works of reference. But his pen had fallen
from his hand, and he was doing nothing. He sat there idle, gazing out
upon the fantastic shapes and half-veiled gloom of this fair garden. Its
rich balmy odors, and the fainter perfume of rarer plants which floated
languidly in through the open window, were nothing to him. He was barely
conscious of the sweet delights of the voluptuous summer night. He was
watching with his eyes fixed upon the east, where morning would soon be
breaking.

It cam