ce with his wonderfully piercing eyes. He seemed to
find there what he was searching for, and when he spoke Blagden wondered
at the gentleness of his voice.

"There is a story. Would the Signor care to hear?"

Blagden nodded, and the two moved back in the shadows a short distance
to the front line of little low chairs. Before them, over the dancing
light of the four candles, stood the mutilated picture of Mary, beneath
it the dust-covered dagger.

And then the withered monk began speaking, and Blagden listened, looking
up at the picture.

"It all happened a great many years ago," said the old man; "but I am
old, so I remember.

"Rosa was the girl's name. She lived with her father and mother in a
little house above Menaggio. And every day in the warm sunlight of the
open fields she sang as she watched the goats for the old people, and
her voice was like cool water laughing in the shadows of a little brook.

"She was always singing, little Rosa; for she was young, and the sun had
never stopped shining for her. People used to call her beautiful.

"And there was Giovanni. Each morning he would pass her home where the
yellow roses with the pink hearts grew so sweetly, and always she would
blow him a kiss from the little window.

"Then Giovanni would toil with all the strength of his youth, and he too
would sing while he toiled; for was it not all for her?

"Often Rosa's goats would stray toward Giovanni's vineyard as dusk
came, and they would drive them home together, always laughing, always
singing, hand in hand, as the sun slipped golden over the top of the
hills across the lake. Sometimes they would walk together in the
afterglow, and Giovanni would weave a crown of the little flowers that
grew about them, and his princess would wear it, laughing happily.

"They were like two children, Signor. There were nights spent together
on the lake, when he told her of his dreams, while the gentlest of winds
stirred her curls against his brown cheek, and the moon's wake stretched
like a golden pathway from shore to shore.

"They were to be married when the grapes were picked, people used to
whisper.

"And then one day a new force came into the girl's life. The Church,
Signor!

"No one understands when or why this comes to a young girl, I think.
She was torn with the idea that she should join her church, go into the
little nunnery across the lake, and leave the sunshine.

"She did not want to go, and it was a strange