hich I read lately in an old book of your
library. According to this story it appears that when the early
Christians of Alexandria set out to destroy the pagan idols in the
temples they were seized with great dread at sight of the god Serapis;
for even those that did not believe in the old gods feared them, and
none dared raise a hand against the sacred image. But suddenly a soldier
who was bolder than the rest flung his battle-axe at the figure--and
when it broke in pieces, there rushed out nothing worse than a great
company of rats."...

* * * * *

The Duke had promised to visit Fulvia that evening. For several days his
state of indecision had made him find pretexts for avoiding her; but now
that the charter was signed and he had ordered its proclamation, he
craved the contact of her unwavering faith.

He found her alone in the dusk of the convent parlour; but he had hardly
crossed the threshold before he was aware of an indefinable change in
his surroundings. She advanced with an impulsiveness out of harmony with
the usual tranquillity of their meetings, and he felt her hand tremble
and burn in his. In the twilight it seemed to him that her very dress
had a warmer rustle and glimmer, that there emanated from her glance and
movements some heady fragrance of a long-past summer. He smiled to think
that this phantom coquetry should have risen at the summons of an
academic degree; but some deeper sense in him was stirred as by a vision
of waste riches adrift on the dim seas of chance.

For a moment she sat silent, as in the days when they had been too near
each other for many words; and there was something indescribably
soothing in this dreamlike return to the past. It was he who roused
himself first.

"How young you look!" he said, giving involuntary utterance to his
thought.

"Do I?" she answered gaily. "I am glad of that, for I feel
extraordinarily young tonight. Perhaps it is because I have been
thinking a great deal of the old days--of Venice and Turin--and of the
high-road to Vercelli, for instance." She glanced at him with a smile.

"Do you know," she went on, moving to a seat at his side, and laying a
hand on the arm of his chair, "that there is one secret of mine you have
never guessed in all these years?"

Odo returned her smile. "What is it, I wonder?" he said.

She fixed him with bright bantering eyes. "I knew why you deserted us at
Vercelli." He uttered an exclamation, but