DAPHNE, AN AUTUMN PASTORAL

by

Margaret Sherwood

CHAPTER I

"Her Excellency, --will she have the politeness, " said Daphne slowly, reading from a tiny Italian-English phrase-book, "the politenessto"--She stopped helpless. Old Giacomo gazed at her with questioningeyes. The girl turned the pages swiftly and chose another phrase. 

"I go, " she announced, "I go to make a walk. "

Light flashed into Giacomo's face. 

"Si, si, Signorina; yes, yes, " he assented with voice and shoulders anda flourish of the spoon he was polishing. "Capisco; I understand. "

Daphne consulted her dictionary. 

"Down there, " she said gravely, pointing toward the top of the greathill on whose side the villa stood. 

"Certainly, " answered Giacomo with a bow, too much pleased byunderstanding when there was no reason for it to be captious in regardto the girl's speech. "The Signorina non ha paura, not 'fraid?"

"I'm not afraid of anything, " was the answer in English. The Italianversion of it was a shaking of the head. Then both dictionary andphrase-book were consulted. 

"To return, " she stated finally, "to return to eat at six hours. " Thenshe looked expectantly about. 

"Assunta?" she said inquiringly, with a slight shrug of her shoulders, for other means of expression had failed. 

"Capisco, capisco, " shouted Giacomo in his excitement, trailing on themarble floor the chamois skin with which he had been polishing thesilver, and speaking in what seemed to his listener one word of athousand syllables. 

"The-Signorina-goes-to-walk-upon-the-hills-above-the-villa-because-it-is-a-most-beautiful-day. -She-returns-to-dine-at-six-and-wishes-Assunta-to-have-dinner-prepared. -Perhaps-the-Signorina-would-tell-what-she-would-like-for-her-dinner?-A-roast-chicken, -yes?-A-salad, -yes?"

Daphne looked dubiously at him, though he had stated the case withentire accuracy, and had suggested for her solitary meal what she mostliked. There was a slight pucker in her white forehead, and shevouchsafed no answer to what she did not understand. 

"Addio, addio, " she said earnestly. 

"A rivederla!" answered Giacomo, with a courtly sweep of the chamoisskin. 

The girl climbed steadily up the moist, steep path leading to the deepshadow of a group of ilex trees on the hill. At her side a stream ofwater trickled past drooping maidenhair fern and over immemorial moss. Here and there it fell in little cascades, making a sleepy murmur inthe warm air of afternoon. 

Halfway up the hill Daphne paused and looked back. Below the yellowwalls of the Villa Accolanti, standing in a wide garden withencompassing poplars and cypresses, sketched great grassy slopes andgray-green olive orchards. The water from the stream, gathered in astone basin at the foot of the hill, flowed in a marble conduit throughthe open hall. As she looked she was aware of two old brown facesanxiously gazing after her. Giacomo and Assunta were chatteringeagerly in the doorway, the black of his butler's dress and the whiteof his protecting apron making his wife's purple calico skirt and redshoulder shawl look more gay. They caught the last flutter of thegirl's blue linen gown as it disappeared among the ilexes. 

"E molto bello, very beautiful, the Signorina, " remarked Assunta. "Whatgray eyes she has, and how she walks!"

"But she knows no speech, " responded her husband. 

"Ma che!" shouted Assunta scornfully, "she talks American. Youcouldn't expect them to speak like us over there. They are not Romansin America. "

"My brother Giovanni is there, " remarked Giacomo. "She could havelearned of him. "

"She is like the Contessa, " said Assunta. "You would know they aresisters, only this one is younger and has something more sweet. "

"This one is grave, " objected Giacomo as he polished. "She does notsmile so much. The Contessa is gay. She laughs and sings and hercheeks grow red when she drinks red wine, and her hair is more yellow. "

"She makes it so!" snapped Assunta. 

"I have heard they all do in Rome, " said Giacomo. "Some day I wouldlike to go to see. "

"To go away, to leave this girl here alone with us when she had justarrived!" interrupted Assunta. "I have no patience with the Contessa. "

"But wasn't his Highness's father sick? And didn't she have to go?Else they wouldn't get his money, and all would go to the youngerbrother. You don't understand these things, you women. " Giacomo'sdefense of his lady got into his fingers, and added much to thebrightness of the spoons. The two talked together now, as fast ashuman tongues could go. 

Assunta. She could have taken the Signorina. 

Giacomo. She couldn't. It's fever. 

Assunta. She could have left her maid. 

Giacomo. Thank the holy father she didn't!

Assunta. And without a word of language to make herself understood. 

Giacomo. She can learn, can't she?

Assunta. And with the cook gone, too! It's a great task for us. 

Giacomo. You'd better be about it!... Going walking alone in thehills! And calling me "Excellency. " There's no telling what Americanswill do. 

Assunta. She didn't know any better. When she has been here a weekshe won't call you "Excellency"! I must make macaroni for dinner. 

Giacomo. Ma che! Macaroni? Roast chicken and salad. 

Assunta. Niente! Macaroni!

Giacomo. Roast chicken! You are a pretty one to take the place of thecook!

Assunta. Roast chicken then! But what are you standing here for inthe hall polishing spoons? If the Contessa could see you!

Assunta dragged her husband by the hem of his white apron through thegreat marble-paved dining-room out into the smoke-browned kitchen inthe rear. 

"Now where's Tommaso, and how am I going to get my chicken?" shedemanded. "And why, in the name of all the saints, should an Americansignorina's illustrious name be Daphne?"

CHAPTER II

An hour later it was four o'clock. High, high up among the slopinghills Daphne sat on a great gray stone. Below her, out beyond oliveorchards and lines of cypress, beyond the distant stone pines, stretched the Campagna, rolling in, like the sea that it used to be, wave upon wave of color, green here, but purple in the distance, andchanging every moment with the shifting shadows of the floating clouds. Dome and tower there, near the line of shining sea, meant Rome. 

Full sense of the enchantment of it all looked out of the girl's face. Wonder sat on her forehead, and on her parted lips. It was a faceserious, either with persistent purpose or with some momentary trouble, yet full of an exquisite hunger for life and light and space. Eyes andhair and curving cheek, --all the girl's sensitive being seemedstruggling to accept the gift of beauty before her, almost too great tograsp. 

"After this, " she said half aloud, her far glance resting on Rome inthe hazy distance, "anything is possible. "

"I don't seem real, " she added, touching her left hand with theforefinger of her right. "It is Italy, ITALY, and that is Rome. Canall this exist within two weeks of the rush and jangle of Broadway?"

There was no answer, and she half closed her eyes, intoxicated withbeauty. 

A live thing darted across her foot, and she looked down to catch aglimpse of something like a slender green flame licking its way throughthe grass. 

"Lizards crawling over me unrebuked, " she said smiling. "Perhaps themillenium has come. "

She picked two grass blades and a single fern. 

"They aren't real, you know, " she said, addressing herself. "This isall too good to be true. It will fold up in a minute and move away forthe next act, and that will be full of tragedy, with an uglybackground. "

The heights still invited. She rose, and wandered on and up. Her stephad the quick movement of a dweller in cities, not the slow pace ofthose who linger along country roads, keeping step with nature. In thecut and fashion of her gown was evinced a sophistication, and a highseriousness, possibly not her own. 

She watched the deep imprint that her footsteps made in the soft grass. 

"I'm half afraid to step on the earth here, " she murmured to herself. "It seems to be quivering with old life. "

The sun hung lower in the west. Of its level golden beams were born athousand shades of color on the heights and in the hollows of thehills. Over all the great Campagna blue, yellow, and purple blended inan autumn haze. 

"Oh!" cried the girl, throwing out her arms to take in the new sense oflife that came flooding in upon her. "I cannot take it in. It is toogreat. "

As she climbed, a strength springing from sheer delight in the widebeauty before her came into her face. 

"It was selfish, and I am going to take it back. To-night I will writeand say so. I could face anything now. "

This hill, and then the side of that; one more gate, then Daphne turnedfor another look at Rome and the sea. Rome and the sea were gone. Here was a great olive orchard, there a pasture touching the sky, butwhere was anything belonging to her? Somewhere on the hills a lamb wasbleating, and near the crickets chirped. Yes, it was safe, perfectlysafe, yet the blue gown moved where the heart thumped beneath it. 

A whistle came floating down the valley to her. It was merry andquick, but it struck terror to the girl's breast. That meant a man. She stood and watched, with terrified gray eyes, and presently she sawhim: he was crashing through a heavy undergrowth of bush and fern notfar away. Daphne gathered her skirts in one hand and fled. She ran asonly an athletic girl can run, swiftly, gracefully. Her skirt flutteredbehind her; her soft dark hair fell and floated on the wind. 

The whistle did not cease, though the man was motionless now. Itchanged from its melody of sheer joy to wonder, amazement, suspense. It took on soothing tones; it begged, it wheedled. So a mother wouldwhistle, if mothers whistled, over the cradle of a crying child, butthe girl did not stop. She was running up a hill, and at the top shestood, outlined in blue, against a bluer sky. A moment later she wasgone. 

Half an hour passed. Cautiously above the top of the hill appeared agirl's head. She saw what she was looking for: the dreaded man wassitting on the stump of a felled birch tree, gazing down the valley, his cheeks resting on his hands. Daphne, stealing behind a giant ilex, studied him. He wore something that looked like a golf suit ofbrownish shade; a soft felt hat drooped over his face. The girl peeredout from her hiding place cautiously, holding her skirts together tomake herself slim and small. It was a choice of evils. On this sideof the hill was a man; on that, the whole wide world, pathless. Shewas hopelessly lost. 

"No bad man could whistle like that, " thought Daphne, caressinglytouching with her cheek the tree that protected her. 

Once she ventured from her refuge, then swiftly retreated. Couragereturning, she stepped out on tiptoe and crept softly toward theintruder. She was rehearsing the Italian phrases she meant to use. 

"Where is Rome?" she asked pleadingly, in the Roman tongue. 

The stranger rose, with no sign of being startled, and removed his hat. Then Daphne sighed a great sigh of relief, feeling that she was safe. 

"Rome, " he answered, in a voice both strong and sweet, "Rome hasperished, and Athens too. "

"Oh"--said the girl. "You speak English. If you are not a strangerhere, perhaps you can tell me where the Villa Accolanti is. "

"I can, " he replied, preparing to lead the way. 

Daphne looked at him now. He was different from any person she hadever seen. Face and head belonged to some antique type of virilebeauty; eyes, hair, and skin seemed all of one golden brown. He walkedas if his very steps were joyous, and his whole personality seemed toradiate an atmosphere of firm content. The girl's face was puzzled asshe studied him. This look of simple happiness was not familiar in NewYork. 

They strode on side by side, over the slopes where the girl had losther way. Every moment added to her sense of trust. 

"I am afraid I startled you, " she said, "coming up so softly. "

"No, " he answered smiling. "I knew that you were behind the ilex. "

"You couldn't see!"

"I have ways of knowing. "

He helped her courteously over the one stone wall they had to climb, but, though she knew that he was watching her, he made no attempt totalk. At last they reached the ilex grove above the villa, and Daphnerecognized home. 

"I am grateful to you, " she said, wondering at this unwonted sense ofbeing embarrassed. "Perhaps, if you will come some day to the villafor my sister to thank you"-- The sentence broke off. "I am DaphneWillis, " she said abruptly, and waited. 

"And I am Apollo, " said the stranger gravely. 

"Apollo--what?" asked the girl. Did they use the old names over here?

"Phoebus Apollo, " he answered, unsmiling. "Is America so modern thatyou do not know the older gods?"

"Why do you call me an American?"

A smile flickered across Apollo's lips. 

"A certain insight goes with being a god. "

Daphne started back and looked at him, but the puzzled scrutiny did notdeepen the color of his brown cheek. Suddenly she was aware that thesunlight had faded, leaving shadow under the ilexes and about thefountain on the hill. 

"I must say good-night, " she said, turning to descend. 

He stood watching every motion that she made until she disappearedwithin the yellow walls of the villa. 

CHAPTER III

Through the great open windows of the room night with all her stars wasshining. Daphne sat by a carved table in the salon, the clear light ofa four-flamed Roman lamp falling on her hair and hands. She waswriting a letter, and, judging by her expression, letter writing was amatter of life and death. 

"I am afraid that I was brutal, " the wet ink ran. "Every day on thesea told me that. I was cowardly too. "

She stopped to listen to the silence, broken only by the murmur ofinsects calling to each other in the dark. Suddenly she laughed aloud. 

"I ought never to have gone so far away, " she remarked to the night. "What would Aunt Alice say? Anyway he is a gentleman, even if he is agod!"

"For I thought only of myself, " the pen continued, "and ignored theobligations I had accepted. It is for you to choose whether you wishthe words of that afternoon unsaid. "

The letter signed and sealed, she rose with a great sigh of relief, andwalked out upon the balcony. Overhead was the deep blue sky of a Romannight, broken by the splendor of the stars. She leaned over the stonerailing of the balcony, feeling beneath her, beyond the shadow of thecypress trees, the distance and darkness of the Campagna. There was amurmur of water from the fountain in the garden, and from the cascadeson the hill. 

"If he were Apollo, " she announced to the listening stars, "it wouldnot be a bit more wonderful than the rest of it. This is just adifferent world, that is all, and who knows whom I shall meet next?Maybe, if I haunt the hills, Diana will come and invite me to goa-hunting. Perhaps if Anna had stayed at home this world would seemnearer. "

She came back into the salon, but before she knew it, her feet weremoving to a half-remembered measure, and she found herself dancingabout the great room in the dim light, the cream-colored draperies ofher dinner gown moving rhythmically after her. Suddenly she stoppedshort, realizing that her feet were keeping pace with the whistling ofthis afternoon, the very notes that had terrified her while thestranger was unseen. She turned her attention to a piece of tapestryon the wall, tracing the faded pattern with slim fingers. For thetwentieth time her eyes wandered to the mosaic floor, to the splendid, tarnished mirrors on the walls, to the carved chairs and table legs, wrought into cunning patterns of leaf and stem. 

"Oh, it is all perfect! and I've got it all to myself!" she exclaimed. 

Then she seated herself at the table again and began another letter. 

Padre mio, --It is an enchanted country! You never saw such beauty ofsky and grass and trees. These cypresses and poplars seem to have beenstanding against the blue sky from all eternity; time is annihilated, and the gods of Greece and Rome are wandering about the hills. 

Anna has gone away. Her father-in-law is very ill, and naturally CountAccolanti is gone too. Even the cook has departed, because of a familycrisis of his own. I am here with the butler and his wife to take careof me, and I am perfectly safe. Don't be alarmed, and don't tell AuntAlice that the elaborate new gowns will have no spectators save twoRoman peasants and possibly a few sheep. Anna wanted to send me anEnglish maid from Rome, but I begged with tears, and she let me off. Assunta is all I need. She and Giacomo are the real thing, peasants, and absolutely unspoiled. They have never been five miles away from theestate, and I know they have all kinds of superstitions and beliefsthat go with the soil. I shall find them out when I can understand. Atpresent we converse with eyes and fingers, for our six weeks' study ofItalian has not brought me knowledge enough to order my dinner. 

Padre carissimo, I've written to Eustace to take it all back. I amafraid you won't like it, for you seemed pleased when it was brokenoff, but I was unkind and I am sorry, and I want to make amends. Youreally oughtn't to disapprove of a man, you know, just because he wantsaltar candles and intones the service. And I think his single-mindeddevotion is beautiful. You do not know what a refuge it has been to methrough all Aunt Alice's receptions and teas. 

Do leave New York, and come and live with me near ancient Rome. We caneasily slip back two thousand years. 

I am your spoiled daughter, Daphne

There was a knock at the door. 

"Avanti, " called the girl. 

Assunta entered, with a saffron-colored night-cap on. In her hand sheheld Giacomo's great brass watch, and she pointed in silence to theface, which said twelve o'clock. She put watch and candle on thetable, marched to the windows, and closed and bolted them all. 

"The candles are lighted in the Signorina's bedroom, " she remarked. 

"Thank you, " said Daphne, who did not understand a word. 

"The bed is prepared, and the night things are put out. "

"Yes?" answered Daphne, smiling. 

"The hot water will be at the door at eight in the morning. "

"So many thanks!" murmured Daphne, not knowing what favor was bestowed, but knowing that if it came from Assunta it was good. 

"Good-night, Signorina. "

The girl's face lighted. She understood that. 

"Good-night, " she answered, in the Roman tongue. 

Assunta muttered to herself as she lighted her way with her candle downthe long hall. 

"Molto intelligente, la Signorina! Only here three days, and alreadyunderstands all. "

"You don't need speech here, " said Daphne, pulling aside the curtainsof her tapestried bed a little later. "The Italians can infer all youmean from a single smile. "

Down the road a peasant was merrily beating his donkey to the measureof the tune on his lips. Listening, and turning over many questions inher mind, Daphne fell asleep. A flood of sunshine awakened her in themorning, and she realized that Assunta was drawing the window curtains. 

"Assunta, " asked the girl, sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes, "arethere many Americans here?"

"Si, " answered Assunta, "very many. "

"And many English?"

"Too many, " said Assunta. 

"Young ones?" asked the girl. 

Assunta shrugged her shoulders. 

"Young men?" inquired Daphne. 

The peasant woman looked sharply at her, then smiled. 

"I saw one man yesterday, " said Daphne, her forehead puckered painfullyin what Assunta mistook for a look of fear. Her carefully preparedphrases could get no nearer the problem she wished solved. 

"Ma che! agnellina mia, my little lamb!" cried the peasant woman, grasping Daphne's hand in order to kiss her fingers, "you are safe, safe with us. No Americans nor English shall dare to look at theSignorina in the presence of Giacomo and me. "

CHAPTER IV

It was not a high wall, that is, not very high. Many a time in thecountry Daphne had climbed more formidable ones, and there was noreason why she should not try this. No one was in sight except ashepherd, watching a great flock of sheep. There was a forgotten rosegarden over in that field; had Caesar planted it, or Tiberius, centuries ago? Certainly no one had tended it for a thousand years ortwo, and the late pink roses grew unchecked. Daphne slowly worked herway to the top of the wall; this close masonry made the proceeding moredifficult than it usually was at home. She stood for a moment on thesummit, glorying in the widened view, then sprang, with the lightnessof a kitten, to the other side. There was a skurry of frightenedsheep, and then a silence. 

She knew that she was sitting on the grass, and that her left wristpained. Some one was coming toward her. 

"Are you hurt?" asked Apollo anxiously. 

"Not at all, " she answered, continuing to sit on the grass. 

"If you were hurt, where would it be?"

"In my wrist, " said the girl, with a little groan. 

The questioner kneeled beside her, and Daphne gave a start of surprisethat was touched with fear. 

"It isn't you?" she stammered. "You aren't the shepherd?"

A sheepskin coat disguised him. The rough hat was of soft droopingfelt, like that of any shepherd watching on the hills, and in his handhe held a crook. An anxious mother-sheep was sniffing eagerly at hispockets, remembering gifts of salt. 

"Apollo was a shepherd, " said Daphne slowly, with wonder in her face. "He kept the flocks of King Admetus. "

"You seem to be well read in the classical dictionary, " remarked thestranger, with twinkling eyes. "You have them in America then?"

He was examining her wrist with practiced fingers, touching it firmlyhere and there. 

"We have everything in America, " said the girl, eyeing him dubiously. 

"But no gods except money, I have heard. "

"Yes, gods, and impostors too, " she answered significantly. 

"So I have heard, " said Apollo, with composure. 

The maddening thing was that she could not look away from him--someradiance of life in his face compelled her eyes. He had thrown his hatupon the grass, and the girl could see strength and sweetness andrepose in every line of forehead, lip, and chin. There was pride there, too, and with it a slight leaning forward of the head. 

"I presume that comes from listening to beseeching prayers, " she wasthinking to herself. 

"Ow!" she remarked suddenly. 

"That is the place, is it?"

He drew from one of the pockets of the grotesque coat a piece ofsheepskin, which he proceeded to cut into two strips with his knife. 

"It seems to be a very slight sprain, " remarked Apollo. "I mustbandage it. Have you any pins about you?"

"Can the gods lack pins?" asked the girl, smiling. She searched, andfound two in her belt, and handed them to him. 

"The gods do not explain themselves, " he answered, binding thesheepskin tightly about her wrist. 

"So I observe, " she remarked dryly. 

"Is that right?" he asked. "Now, when you reach home, you must removethe bandage and hold your hand and wrist first in very hot water, thenin cold. Is there some one who can put the bandage back as I have it?See, it simply goes about the wrist, and is rather tight. You mustpardon my taking possession of the case, but no one else was near. Apollo has always been something of a physician, you know. "

"You apparently used the same classical dictionary that I did, "retorted Daphne. "I remember the statement there. "

Then she became uncomfortable, and wished her words unsaid, for awe hadcome upon her. After all, nothing could be more unreal than she was toherself in these days of wonder. Her mind was full of dreams as theysat and watched white clouds drifting over the deep blue of the sky. Near them the sheep were cropping grass, and all the rest was silence. 

"You look anxious, " said the physician. "Is it the wrist?"

"No, " answered the girl, facing him bravely, under the momentaryinspiration of a wave of common sense, "I am wondering why you makethis ridiculous assumption about yourself. Tell me who you really are. "

If he had defended himself she would have argued, but he was silent andshe half believed. 

"But you look like a mortal, " she protested, answering her ownthoughts. "And you wear conventional clothing. I don't mean thissheepskin, but the other day. "

"It is a realistic age, " he answered, smiling. "People no longerbelieve what they do not see. We are forced to adopt modern methodsand modern costume to show that we exist. "

"You do not look like the statue of Apollo, " ventured Daphne. 

"Did people ever dare tell the truth about the gods? Never! They madeup a notion of what a divine nose should be and bestowed it upon allthe gods impartially. So with the forehead, so with the hair. Iassure you, Miss Willis, we are much more individual than Greek artwould lead you to expect. "

"Do you mind just telling me why you are keeping sheep now?"

"I will, if you will promise not to consider a question of mineimpertinent. "

"What is the question?"

"I only wished to know why an American young lady should bear a Greekname? It is a beautiful name, and one that is a favorite of mine asyou may know. "

"I didn't know, " said Daphne. "It was given me by my father. He wasborn in America, but he had a Greek soul. He has always longed to livein Greece, but he has to go on preaching, preaching, for he is arector, you know, in a little church in New York, that isn't very rich, though it is very old. All his life he has been hungry for the beautyand the greatness of the world over here. "

"That accounts for your expression, " observed Apollo. 

"What expression?"

"That isn't the question I promised to answer. If you will take a fewsteps out of your way, I can satisfy you in regard to the first one youasked. "

He rose, and the white shepherd dog sprang ahead, barking joyously. Thesheep looked up and nibbled in anxious haste, fearing that any otherbit of pasture might be less juicy than this. Daphne followed theshepherd god to a little clump of oak trees, where she saw a small, rough gray tent, perhaps four feet in height. Under it, on brownblankets, lay a bearded man, whose eyes lighted at Apollo's approach. A blue bowl with a silver spoon in it stood on the ground near hishead, and a small heap of charred sticks with an overhanging kettleshowed that cooking had been done there. 

"The shepherd has a touch of fever, " explained the guide. "Meanwhile, somebody must take care of the sheep. I am glad to get back my twooccupations as shepherd and physician at the same time. "

The dog and his master accompanied her part way down the hill, and thegirl was silent, for her mind was busy, revolving many thoughts. Atthe top of the last height above the villa she stopped and looked ather companion. The sun was setting, and a golden haze filled the air. It ringed with light the figure before her, standing there, the face, with its beauty of color, and its almost insolent joyousness, risingabove the rough sheepskin coat. 

"Who are you?" she gasped, terrified. "Who are you, really?" Theconfused splendor dazzled her eyes, and she turned and ran swiftly downthe hill. 

CHAPTER V

"A man is ill, " observed Daphne, in the Roman tongue. 

"What?" demanded Giacomo. 

"A man is ill, " repeated Daphne firmly. She had written it out, andshe knew that it was right. 

"Her mind wanders, " Giacomo hinted to his wife. 

"No, no, no! It's the Signorina herself, " cried Assunta, whose witswere quicker than her husband's. "She is saying that she is ill. Whatis it, Signorina mia? Is it your head, or your back, or your stomach?Are you cold? Have you fever?"

"Si, " answered Daphne calmly. The answer that usually quieted Assuntafailed now. Then she tried the smile. That also failed. 

"Tell me, " pleaded Assunta, speaking twice as fast as usual, in orderto move the Signorina's wits to quicker understanding. "If theSignorina is ill the Contessa will blame me. It is measles perhaps;Sor Tessa's children have it in the village. " She felt of the girl'sforehead and pulse, and stood more puzzled than before. 

"The Signorina exaggerates, perhaps?" she remarked in question. 

"Thank you!" said Daphne beseechingly. 

That was positively her last shot, and if it missed its aim she knewnot what to do. She saw that the two brown faces before her were fullof apprehension, and she came back to her original proposition. 

"A man is ill. "

The faces were blank. Daphne hastily consulted her phrase-book. 

"I wish food, " she remarked glibly. "I wish soup, and fish, and redwine and white, and everything included, tutto compreso. "

The brown eyes lighted; these were more familiar terms. 

"Now?" cried Assunta and Giacomo in one breath, "at ten o'clock in themorning?"

"Si, " answered Daphne firmly, "please, thank you. " And she disappeared. 

An hour later they summoned her, and looked at her in bewilderment whenshe entered the dining-room with her hat on. Giacomo stood ready forservice, and the Signorina's soup was waiting on the table. 

The girl laughed when she saw it. 

"Per me? No, " she said, touching her dress with her finger; "for him, up there, " and she pointed upward. 

Giacomo shook his head and groaned, for his understanding was exhausted. 

"I go to carry food to the man who is ill, " recited Daphne, her foottapping the floor in impatience. She thrust her phrase-book out towardGiacomo, but he shook his head again, being one whose knowledge wassuperior to the mere accomplishment of reading. 

Daphne's short skirt and red felt hat disappeared in the kitchen. Presently she returned with Assunta and a basket. The two understoodher immediate purpose now, however bewildering the ultimate. Theypacked the basket with a right good will: red wine in a transparentflask, yellow soup in a shallow pitcher, bread, crisp lettuce, and thinslices of beef. Then Daphne gave the basket to Giacomo and beckonedhim to come after her. 

He climbed behind his lady up the narrow path by the waterfalls throughdamp grass and trickling fern, then up the great green slope toward theclump of oak trees. By the low gray tent they halted, and Giacomo'sexpression changed. He had not understood the Signorina, he saidhastily, and he begged the Signorina's pardon. She was good, she wasgracious. 

"Speak to him, " said Daphne impatiently; "go in, give him food. "

He lifted the loose covering that served as the side of a tent, andfound the sick man. Giacomo chattered, his brown fingers movingswiftly by way of punctuation. The sick man chattered, too, hisfingers moving more slowly in their weakness. Giacomo seemed excitedby what he heard, and Daphne, watching from a little distance, wonderedif fever must not increase under the influence of tongues that waggedso fast. She strolled away, picking tiny, pink-tipped daisies and bluesuccory blossoms growing in the moist green grass. From high on adistant hillside, among his nibbling sheep, the shepherd watched. 

Giacomo presently stopped talking and fed the invalid the soup and partof the wine he had brought. He knew too much, as a wise Italian, togive a sick man bread and beef. Then he made promises of blankets, andof more soup to-morrow, tucked the invalid up again, and prepared to gohome. On the way down the hill he was explosive in his excitement;surely the Signorina must understand such vehement words. 

"The sheep are Count Gianelli's sheep, " he shouted. "I knew the sheepbefore, and there isn't a finer flock on the hills. This man is fromOrtalo, a day's journey. The Signorina understands?"

She smiled, the reassuring smile that covers ignorance. Then she camenearer, and bent her tall head to listen. 

"His name is Antoli, " said Giacomo, speaking more distinctly. "Fourdays ago he fell ill with fever and with chills. He lay on the groundamong the sheep, for he had only his blanket that the shepherds use atnight. The sheep nibbled close to him, and touched his face with theirtongues, and bit off hairs from his head as they cropped the grass, butthey did not care. Sheep never do! Ah, how a dog cares! TheSignorina wishes to hear the rest?"

Daphne nodded eagerly, for she had actually understood severalsentences. 

"The second day he felt a warm tongue licking his face, and there werepaws on his breast as he waked from sleep. It was a white dog. Heopened his eyes, and there before him was a Signorino, young, beautifulas a god, in a suit of brown. Since then Antoli has wanted nothing, food, nor warm covering, nor medicine, nor kind words. The Signorinowears his sheepskin coat and tends his sheep!"

Giacomo's voice was triumphant with delight as he pointed toward thedistant flock with the motionless attendant. The girl's face shone, half in pleasure, half in fear. "Beautiful as a god" was more like theItalian she had read in her father's study in New York than were thephrases Giacomo and Assunta employed for every day. She hadcomprehended all of her companion's excitement, and many of his words, for much of the story was already hers. 

"Giacomo, " she said, speaking slowly, "are the gods here yet?"

The old peasant looked at her with cunning eyes, and made with hisfingers the sign of the horn that wards off evil. 

"Chi lo sa? Who knows, Signorina?" he said, half whispering. "Thereare stories--I have heard--the Signorina sees these ilex trees? Overyonder was a great one in my father's day, and the old Count Accolantiwould have it cut. He came to watch it as it fell, and the treetumbled the wrong way and struck him so that he half lost his wits. There are who say that the tree god was angry. And I have heard aboutthe streams, too, Signorina; when they are turned out of their course, they overflow and do damage, and surely there used to be river gods. Ido not know; I cannot tell. The priest says they are all gone since thecoming of our Lord, but I wouldn't, not for all the gold in Rome, Iwouldn't see this stream of the waterfalls turned away from flowingdown the hill and through the house. What there is in it I do notknow, but in some way it is alive. "

"Thank you!" said Daphne. The look on her face pleased the old man. 

"I think I prefer her to the Contessa after all, " said Giacomo thatafternoon to Assunta as he was beating the salad dressing for dinner. 

"She is simpatica! It is wonderful how she understands, though shecannot yet talk much. But her eyes speak. "

They served her dinner with special care that night, for kindness to anunfortunate fellow peasant had won what still needed winning of theirhearts. She sat alone in the great dining-hall, with Giacomo movingswiftly about her on the marble floor. On the white linen and silver, on her face and crimson gown, gleamed the light of many candles, standing in old-fashioned branching candlesticks. She pushed away hersoup; it seemed an intrusion. Not until she heard Giacomo's murmur ofdisappointment as she refused salad did she rouse herself to do justiceto the dressing he had made. Her eyes were the eyes of one living in adream. Suddenly she wakened to the fact that she was hungry, andGiacomo grinned as she asked him to bring back the roast, and let himfill again with cool red wine the slender glass at her right hand. Whenthe time for dessert came, she lifted a bunch of purple grapes and putthem on her plate, breaking them off slowly with fingers that gotstained. 

"I shall wake up by and by!" she said, leaning back in her carvedFlorentine chair. "Only I hope it may be soon. Otherwise, " she added, nibbling a bit of ginger, unconscious that her figures were mixed, "Ishall forget my way back to the world. "

CHAPTER VI

There were two weeks of golden days. The sun rose clear over the greenhills behind the villa, and dropped at night into the blue sea theother side of Rome. Daphne counted off the minutes in pulse beats thatwere actual pleasure. Between box hedges, past the clusters of roses, chrysanthemums, and dahlias in the villa garden, she walked, wonderingthat she had never known before that the mere crawling of the bloodthrough the veins could mean joy. She was utterly alone, solitary, speechless; there were moments when the thought of her sister's presenttrouble, and of the letter she was expecting from New York, would takethe color from the sky; but no vexatious thought could long resist theenchantment of this air, and she forgot to be unhappy. She saw no moreof the shepherd god, but always she was conscious of a presence in thesunshine on the hills. 

On the eighth morning, as she paced the garden walks, a lizardscampered from her path, and she chased it as a five year old childmight have done. A slim cypress tree stood in her way; she grasped itin her arms, and held it, laying her cheek against it as if it were afriend. Some new sense was dawning in her of kinship with branch andflower. She was forgetting how to think; she was Daphne, the Greekmaiden, whose life was half the life of a tree. 

When she took her arms from the tree she saw that he was there, lookingat her from over the hedge, with the golden brown lights in eyes andhair, and the smile that had no touch of amusement in it, only ofhappiness. 

"Sometimes, " he murmured, "you remind me of Hebe, but on the whole, Ithink you are more like my sister Diana. "

"Tell me about Diana, " begged Daphne, coming near the hedge and puttingone hand on the close green leaves. 

"We were great friends as children, " observed Apollo. "It was I whotaught her how to hunt, and we used to chase each other in the woods. When I went faster then she did, she used to get angry and say shewould not play. Oh, those were glorious mornings, when the light wasclear at dawn!"

"Why are you here?" asked Daphne abruptly, "and, if you will excuse me, where did you come from?"

"Surely you have heard about the gods being exiled from Greece! Wewander, for the world has cast us out. Some day they will need usagain, and will pluck the grass from our shrines, and then we shallcome back to teach them. "

"Teach them what?" asked the girl. She could make out nothing from themystery of that face, and besides, she did not dare to look too closely. 

"I should teach them joy, " he answered simply. 

They were so silent, looking at each other over the dark green hedge, that the lizards crept back in the sunshine close to their feet. Daphne's blue gown and smooth dark hair were outlined against the deepgreen of her cypress tree. A grapevine that had grown about the treethrew the shadow of delicate leaf and curling tendril on her pale cheekand scarlet lips. The expression of the heathen god as he looked ather denoted entire satisfaction. 

"I know what you would teach them, " she said slowly. "You would showthem how to ignore suffering and pain. You would turn your back onneed. Oh, that makes me think that I have forgotten to take yourfriend Antoli any soup lately! For three days I took it, and then, andthen--I have been worried about things. "

His smile was certainly one of amusement now. 

"You must pardon me for seeming to change the subject, " he said. "Whyshould you worry? There is nothing in life worth worrying about. "

Fine scorn crept into the girl's face. 

"No, " he continued, answering her expression. "I don't ignore. I amglad because I have chosen to be glad, and because I have won mycontent. There is a strenuous peace for those who can fight their waythrough to it. "

Suddenly, through the beauty of his color, the girl saw, graven as witha fine tool upon his face, a story of grief mastered. In the lines ofchin and mouth and forehead it lurked there, half hidden by his smile. 

"Tell me, " said Daphne impulsively. Her hand moved nearer on thehedge, but she did not know it. He shook his head, and the veildropped again. 

"Why tell?" he asked. "Isn't there present misery enough before oureyes always, without remembering the old?"

She only gazed at him, with a puzzled frown on her forehead. 

"So you think it is your duty to worry?" he asked, the joyous notecoming back into his voice. 

Daphne broke into a smile. 

"I suppose I do, " she confessed. "And it's so hard here. I keepforgetting. "

"Why do you want to remember?"

"It is so selfish not to. "

He nodded, with an air of ancient wisdom. 

"I have lived on this earth more years than you have, some thousands, you remember, and I can assure you that more people forget theirfellows because of their own troubles than because of their own joys. "

The girl pulled at a tendril of the vine with her fingers, eyeing hercompanion keenly. 

"I presume, " she said, with a tremor in her voice, "that you are anEnglishman, or an American who has studied Greek thought deeply, beingtired of modern people and modern ways, and that you are trying to getback to an older, simpler way of living. "

"It has ever been the custom, " said Apollo, gently taking the tendrilof the vine from her fingers, "for a nation to refuse to believe thedivinity of the others' gods. "

"Anyway, " mused the girl, not quite conscious that she was speakingaloud, "whatever you think, you are good to the shepherd. "

He laughed outright. 

"I find that most people are better than their beliefs, " he answered. "Now, Miss Willis, I wonder if I dare ask you questions about the wayof living that has brought you to believe in the divine efficacy ofunhappiness. "

"My father is a clergyman, " answered the girl, with a smile. 

"Exactly!" said the heathen god. 

"We have lived very quietly, in one of the streets of older New York. I won't tell you the number, for of course it would not mean anythingto you. "

"Of course not, " said Apollo. 

"He is rector of a queer little old-fashioned church that has existedsince the days of Washington. It is quaint and irregular, and I amvery fond of it. "

"It isn't the Little Church of All the Saints?" demanded her companion. 

"It is. How did you know?"

"Divination, " he answered. 

"Oh!" said Daphne. "Why don't you divine the rest?"

"I should rather hear you tell it, if you don't mind. "

"I have studied with my father a great deal, " she went on. "And then, there have been a great many social things, for I have an aunt whoentertains a great deal, and she always needs me to help her. That hasbeen fun, too. "

"Then it has been religion and dinners, " he summarized briefly. 

"It has. "

"With a Puritan ancestry, I suppose?"

"For a god, " murmured Daphne, "it seems to me you know a great deal toomuch about some things, and not enough about others. "

"I have brought you something, " he said, suddenly changing the subject. 

He lifted the sheepskin coat and held out to her a tiny lamb, whoseheavy legs hung helpless, and whose skin shone pink through the littlecurls of wool. The girl stretched out her arms and gathered the littlecreature in them. 

"A warm place to lie, and warm milk are what it needs, " he said. "Itwas born out of its time, and its mother lies dead on the hills. Springis for birth, not autumn. "

Daphne watched him as he went back to his sheep, then turned toward thehouse. Giacomo and Assunta saw her coming in her blue dress betweenthe beds of flowers with the lambkin in her arms. 

"Like our Lady!" said Assunta, hurrying to the rescue. 

The two brown ones asked no questions, possibly because of thedifficulty of conversing with the Signorina, possibly from someprofounder reason. 

"Maybe the others do not see him, " thought the girl in perplexity. "Maybe I dream him, but this lamb is real. "

She sat in the sun on the marble steps of the villa, the lamb on herlap. A yellow bowl of milk stood on the floor, close to the littlewhite head that dangled from her blue knee. Daphne, acting onAssunta's directions, curled one little finger under the milk andoffered the tip of it to the lamb to suck. He responded eagerly, andso she wheedled him into forgetfulness of his dead mother. 

An hour later, as she paced the garden paths, a faint bleat sounded atthe hem of her skirt, and four unsteady legs supported a weak littlebody that tumbled in pursuit of her. 

CHAPTER VII

Up the long smooth road that lay by the walls of the villa came toilinga team of huge grayish oxen, with monstrous spreading horns tied withblue ribbons. The cart that they drew was filled with baskets loadedwith grapes, and a whiff of their fragrance smote Daphne's nostrils asshe walked on the balcony in the morning air. 

"Assunta, Assunta!" she cried, leaning over the gray, moss-coatedrailing, "what is it?"

Assunta was squatting on the ground in the garden below, digging with ablunt knife at the roots of a garden fern. There was a gray red cottonshawl over her head, and a lilac apron upon her knees. 

"It's the vintage, Signorina, " she answered, "the wine makes itself. "

"Everything does itself in this most lazy country, " remarked Daphne. "Dresses make themselves, boots repair themselves, food eats itself. There's just one idiom, si fa, "--

"What?" asked Assunta. 

"Reflections, " answered the girl, smiling down on her. "Assunta, may Igo and help pick grapes?"

"Ma che!" screamed the peasant woman, losing her balance in her suddenemotion and going down on her knees in the loosened soil. 

"The Signorina, the sister of the Contessa, go to pick grapes in thevineyard?"

"Si'" answered Daphne amiably. Her face was alive with laughter. 

"But the Contessa would die of shame!" asserted Assunta, rising withbits of dirt clinging to her apron, and gesticulating with the knife. "It would be a scandal, and all the pickers would say, 'Behold the madEnglish-Woman!'"

She looked up beseechingly at her mistress. She and Giacomo nevercould tell beforehand which sentences the Signorina was going tounderstand. 

"Come with me!" coaxed the girl. 

"But does the Signorina want to"--

"I want everything!" Daphne interrupted. "Grapes and flowers and wineand air and sunshine. I want to see and feel and taste and touch andsmell everything there is. The days are too short to take it all in. Hurry!"

As most of this outburst was in English, Assunta could do nothing butlook up with an air of deepened reproach. Daphne disappeared from therailing, and a minute later was at Assunta's side. 

"Come, come, come!" she cried, pulling her by the lilac apron. "Ourtime is brief, and we must gather rosebuds while we may. I am young andyou are old, and neither of us has any time to lose. "

Before she knew it, Assunta was trotting meekly down the road at theyoung lady's heels, carrying a great flat basket for the Signorina'suse in picking grapes. 

They were bound for the lower slopes; the grapes ripened earlier there, the peasant woman explained, and the frosts came later. The loadedwagons that they met were going to Arata, a wine press in the valleybeyond this nearest hill. Perhaps the Signorina would like to go thereto see the new wine foaming in the vat? Strangers often went to seethis. 

Daphne's blood went singing through her veins with some new sense offreedom and release, for the gospel of this heathen god was working inher pulses. Wistfully her eyes wandered over the lovely slopes withtheir clothing of olive and of vine, and up and down the curling longwhite roads. At some turning of the way, or at some hilltop where theroad seemed to touch the blue sky, surely she would see him coming withthat look of divine content upon his face!

Suddenly she realized that they were inside the vineyard walls, forfragrance assailed her nostrils, fragrance of ripened grapes, of grapescrushed under foot as the swift pickers went snipping the full purplebunches with their shears. 

"I shall see Bacchus coming next, " she said to herself, but hoping thatit would not be Bacchus. "He will go singing down the hill with theMaenads behind him, with fluttering hair and draperies. "

It was not nearly so picturesque as she had hoped, she confessed toherself, as her thoughts came down to their customary level. Thevineyard of her dreams, with its long, trailing vines, was not found inthis country; there were only close-clipped plants trained to stakes. But there was a sound of talking and of laughter, and the pickers, moving among the even lines in their gay rags, lent motley color to thepicture. There was scarlet of waistcoat or of petticoat, blue andsaffron of jacket and apron, and a blending of all bright tints in thekerchiefs above the hair. The rich dark soil made a background for itall: the moving figures, the clumps of pale green vine leaves, thegreat baskets of piled-up grapes. 

Assunta was chattering eagerly with a young man who smiled, and tookoff his hat to the Signorina, and said something polite, with a show ofwhite teeth. Daphne did not know what it was, but she took the pair ofscissors that were given her, and began to cut bunch after bunch ofgrapes. If she had realized that the peasant woman, her heart full ofshame, had confessed to the overseer her young lady's whim, and had wonpermission for her to join the ranks of the pickers, she might havebeen less happy. As it was, she noticed nothing, but diligently cut hergrapes, piling them, misty with bloom, flecked with gold sunlights, inher basket. Then she found a flat stone and sat on it, watching theworkers and slowly eating a great bunch of grapes. She had woven greenleaves into the cord of her red felt hat; the peasants as they passedsmiled back to her in swift recognition of her friendliness and charm. 

Her thoughts flamed up within her with sudden anger at herself. Thisvivid joy in the encompassing beauty had but one meaning: it was hersense of the glad presence of this new creature, man or god, who seemedcontinually with her, were he near or far. 

"I'm as foolish as a sixteen-year-old girl, " she murmured, fingeringthe grapes in the basket with their setting of green leaves, "and yet, and yet he isn't a man, really; he is only a state of mind!"

She sat, with the cool air of autumn on her cheeks, watching thepickers, who went with even motion up the great slope. Sometimes therewas silence on the hillside; now and then there was a fragment of song. One gay, tripping air, started by three women who stood idle with armsakimbo for a moment on the hillside, was caught up and echoed back byinvisible singers on the other side of the hill. And once thered-cheeked Italian lads who were carrying loaded baskets down towardthe vineyard gates burst into responsive singing that made her thinkthat she had found, on the Roman hills, some remnant of the old Bacchicmusic, of the alternate strains that marked the festival of the god ofwine. It was something like this:--

Carlo. 

 "Of all the gifts of all the gods I choose the ruddy wine. The brimming glass shall be my lot"--

Giovanni (interrupting). 

 "Carlotta shall be mine! Take you the grape, I only ask The shadow of the vine To screen Carlotta's golden head"--

Carlo (interrupting). 

 "Give me the ruddy wine. "

Together. 

 G. "Carlotta shall be mine!" C. "Give me the ruddy wine!"

Assunta was visibly happy when the Signorina signified her willingnessto go home. The pride of the house servant was touched by beingcompelled to come too closely in contact with the workers in thefields, and where is there pride like that of a peasant? But her joywas short-lived. Outside the great iron gates stood a team ofbeautiful fawn-colored oxen, with spotless flanks, and great, blue, patient eyes looking out from under broad foreheads. They werestarting, with huge muscles quivering under their white skin, to carrya load of grapes to the wine press, the yield of this year being toogreat for the usual transportation on donkey back. 

"Assunta, I go too, " cried Daphne. 

Five minutes later the Signorina, with her unwilling handmaid at herside, rode in triumph up the broad highway with the measured motion ofslow oxen feet. Place had been made for them among the grape baskets, and they sat on folded blankets, Assunta's face wearing the expressionof one who was a captive indeed, the Signorina's shining with simplehappiness and somewhat stained by grapes. 

The wine press was nothing after all but a machine, and though acertain interest attached to the great vats, hollowed out in the tufarock, into which the new-made wine trickled, Daphne soon signified herwillingness to depart. Before she left they brought her a great glassof rich red grape juice fresh from the newly crushed grapes. Shetouched her lips to it, then looked about her. Assunta was talking tothe workman who had given it to her, and he was looking the other way. She feasted her eyes on the color of the thing she held in her hand. It was a rough glass whose shallow bowl had the old Etruscan curves ofbeauty, and the crimson wine caught the sunlight in a thousand ways. Bending over, she poured it out slowly on the green grass. 

"A libation to Apollo, " she said, not without reverence. 

CHAPTER VIII

"I shall call you, " said Daphne to the lamb on the fourth day of hislife with her, "I shall call you Hermes, because you go so fast. "

Very fast indeed he went. By garden path, or on the slopes below thevilla, he followed her with swift gallop, interrupted by many jumps andgambols, and much frisking of his tail. If he lost himself in hiswayward pursuit of his mistress, a plaintive bleat summoned her to hisside. On the marble stairs of the villa, even in the sacred precinctsof the salon, she heard the tinkle of his hard little hoofs, and shehad no courage to turn him back. He bleated so piteously outside thedoor when his lady dined that at last he won the desire of his heartand lapped milk from a bowl on the floor at her side as she ate hersalad or broke her grapes. 

"What scandal!" muttered Giacomo every time he brought the bowl. TheContessa would discharge him if she knew! But he always remembered, even if Daphne forgot, and meekly dried the milk from his sleek blacktrousers whenever Hermes playfully dashed his hoof, instead of hisnose, into the bowl. As Giacomo explained to Assunta in the kitchen, it was for the Signorina, and the Signorina was very lonely. 

She was less lonely with Hermes, for he spoke her language. 

"It is almost time to hear from Eustace, " Daphne told him one day, asshe sat on a stone under an olive tree in the orchard below the house. Hermes stood before her, his head down, his tail dejectedly drooped. 

"Perhaps, " she added, dreamily looking up at the blue sky through itsbroken veil of gray-green olive leaves, "perhaps he does not want meback, and the letter will tell me so. "

Hermes gave an incredible jump high in the air, lighted on his fourfeet, pranced, gamboled, curveted. 

"It is very hard to know one's duty or to do it, Hermes, " said Daphne, patting his woolly brow. Hermes intimated, by means of frisking legsand tail, that he would not try. 

"I believe you are bewitched, " said the girl, suddenly taking him up inher arms. "I believe you are some little changeling god sent by yourmaster Apollo to put his thoughts into my head. "

He squirmed, and she put him down. Then she gave him a harmless slapon his fleecy side. 

"But you aren't a good interpreter, Hermes. Some way I think that hisjoyousness lies the other side of pain. He never ran away from hardthings. "

This was more than the lambkin could understand or bear, and he fled, hiding from her in the tall fern of a thicket in a corner of the field. 

The days were drifting by too fast. Already the Contessa Accolanti hadbeen away three weeks, and her letters held out no hope of an immediatereturn. Giacomo and Assunta were very sorry for their young mistress, not knowing how little she was sorry for herself, and they tried toentertain her. They had none of the hard exclusiveness of Englishservants, but admitted her generously to such of their family joys asshe would share. Giacomo introduced her to the stables and the horses;Assunta initiated her into some of the mysteries of Italian cooking. Tommaso, the scullion, and Pia, the maid, stood by in grinning delightone day when the Contessa's sister learned to make macaroni. 

"Now I know, " said Daphne, after she had stood for half an hour underthe smoke-browned walls of the kitchen watching Assunta's manipulationof eggs and flour, the long kneading, the rolling out of a thin layerof dough, with the final cutting into thin strips; "to make Sunday andfestal-day macaroni you take all the eggs there are, and mix them upwith flour, and do all that to it; and then you boil it on the stove, and make a sauce for it out of everything there is in the house, bitsof tomato, and parsley, and onion, and all kinds of meat. E vero?"

"Si, " said Assunta, marveling at the patois that the Signorina spoke, and wondering if it contained Indian words. 

The very sight of the rows of utensils on the kitchen walls deepenedthe rebellious mood of this descendant of the Puritans. 

"Even the pots and pans have lovely shapes, " said Daphne wistfully, forthe slender necks, the winning curves, the lines of shallow bowl andbasin bore testimony to the fact that the meanest thought of thispeople was a thought of beauty. "I wonder why the Lord gave to themthe curve, to us the angle?"

When the macaroni was finished, Assunta invited the Signorina to gowith her to a little house set by itself on the sloping hill back ofthe kitchen. 

"E carin', eh?" demanded Assunta, as she opened the door. 

Fragrance met them at the threshold, fragrance of fruit and of honey. The warm sun poured in through the dirty, cobwebbed window when Assuntalifted the shade. Ranged on shelves along the wall stood bottles ofyellow oil; partly buried in the ground were numerous jars of wine, bottles and jars both keeping the beautiful Etruscan curves. Onshallow racks were spread bunches of yellow and of purple grapes, andgolden combs of honey gleamed from dusky corners. 

"Ecco!" said Assunta, pointing to the wine jar from which she had beenfilling the bottle in her hand. "The holy cross! Does the Signorinasee it?"

"Si, " said Daphne. 

"And here also?" asked Assunta, pointing to another. 

The girl nodded doubtfully. Two irregular scratches could, byimaginative vision, be translated into a cross. 

"As on every one, Signorina, " said Assunta triumphantly. "And nobodyputs it there. It comes by itself. "

"Really?" asked the girl. 

"Veramente, " replied the peasant woman. "It has to, and not only here, but everywhere. You see, years and years ago, there were heathenspirits in the wine, and they made trouble when our Lord came. I haveheard that the jars burst and the wine was wasted because the god ofthe wine was angry that the real God was born. And it lasted till SanPietro came and exorcised the wicked spirit, and he put a cross on awine jar to keep him away. Since then every wine jar bears somewherethe sign of the cross. "

"What became of the poor god?" asked Daphne. 

"He fled, I suppose to hell, " answered Assunta piously. 

"Poor heathen gods!" murmured Daphne. 

The sunshine, flooding the little room, fell full on her face, and madered lights in her brown hair. 

"There was a god of the sun, too, named Apollo, " she said, warming herhands in level rays. "Was he banished too?"

Assunta shrugged her shoulders. 

"Who knows? They dare not show their faces here since the Holy Fatherhas blessed the land. "

Hermes bleated at the door, and the trio descended the hill together, Assunta carrying a basket of grapes and a bottle of yellow oil, Daphnewith a slender flask of red wine in her hand. 

The next day the heavens opened, and rain poured down. The cascadesabove the villa became spouting waterfalls; the narrow path beside thema leaping brook. The rain had not the steady and persistent motion ofwell-conducted rain; it came in sheets, blown by sudden gusts againstthe windows, or driven in wild spurts among the cypresses. The worldfrom the villa windows seemed one blur of watery green, with a thingray veil of mist to hide it. 

Daphne paced the mosaic floors in idleness, or spelled out the meaningof Petrarchan sonnets in an old vellum copy she had found in thelibrary. Sometimes she sat brooding in one of the faded gilt andcrimson chairs in the salon, by the diminutive fireplace where two orthree tiny twigs burned out their lives in an Italian thought of heat. 

What did a Greek god do when sunshine disappeared? she wondered. Or hadthe god of the sun gone away altogether, and was this deluge theresult? The shepherd Antoli had been taken home, Giacomo assured her, but he was exceedingly reticent when asked who was herding the sheep, only shrugging his shoulders with a "Chi lo sa?"

On the second day of the rain Daphne saw that the flock had come nearthe house. From the dining-room window she could see the sheep, withwater soaking into their thick wool. Some one was guarding them. Withlittle streams dashing from the drooping felt hat to the sheepskin cladshoulders, the keeper stood, motionless in the pelting rain. The sheepate greedily the wet, juicy grass, while the shepherd leaned on hisstaff and watched. Undoubtedly it was Antoli's peasant successor, Daphne thought, as she stood with her face to the dripping window pane. Then the shepherd turned, and she recognized, under the wet hat brim, the glowing color and undaunted smile of her masquerading god. Whetherhe saw her or not she could not tell, but she stood by the storm-washedwindow in her scarlet house gown and watched, longing to give himshelter. 

CHAPTER IX

He came to her next through music, when the rain clouds had brokenaway. That divine whistle, mellow, mocking, irresistible, still washeard when morning lay on the hills. Often, when afternoon had touchedall the air to gold, when the shadows of chestnut and cypress andgnarled olive lay long on the grass, other sounds floated down toDaphne, music from some instrument that she did not know. It was noharp, surely, yet certain clear, ranging notes seemed to come from thesweeping of harp strings; again, it had all the subtle, penetratingmelody of the violin. Whatever instrument gave it forth, it drew thegirl's heart after it to wander its own way. When it was gay it wonher feet to some dance measure, and all alone in the great empty roomsshe would move to it with head thrown back and her whole body swayingin a new sense of rhythm. When it was sad, it set her heart to beatingin great throbs, for then it begged and pleaded. There was need in it, a human cry that surely was not the voice of a god. It spoke out of agreat yearning that answered to her own. Whether it was swift or slowshe loved it, and waited for it day by day, thinking of Apollo and hisharping to the muses nine. 

So her old life and her old mood slipped away like a garment no longerneeded: her days were set to melody, and her nights to pleasantdreams. The jangle of street cars and the twinges of conscience, thenoises of her native city, and her heart searchings in the LittleChurch of All the Saints faded to the remoteness of a faint gray bar ofcloud that makes the sunset brighter in the west. She went singingamong the olives or past the fountain under the ilexes on the hill:duties and perplexities vanished in the clear sunshine and pleasantshadow of this golden world. 

And all this meant that she had forgotten about the mails. She hadceased to long for letters containing good news, or to fear that onefull of bad tidings would come, and every one knows that such a stateof mind as this is serious. Now, when Assunta found her one morning, pacing the long, frescoed hall, by the side of the running water, andput a whole sheaf of letters into her hand, Daphne looked at themcautiously, and started to open one, then lost her courage and heldthem for a while to get used to them. Finally she went upstairs andchanged her dress, putting on her short skirt and red felt hat, andwalked out into the highway with Hermes skipping after her. She walkedrapidly up the even way, under the high stone walls green withoverhanging ivy and wistaria vines, and the lamb kept pace with herwith his gay gallop, broken now and then by a sidelong leap of sheerjoy up into the air. Presently she found a turning that she had notknown before, marked by a little wayside shrine, and taking it, followed a narrow grass-grown road that curled about the side of a hill. 

She read her father's letter first, walking slowly and smiling. If hewere only here to share this wide beauty! Then she read her sister's, which was full of woeful exclamations and bad news. The sick man wasslowly dying, and they could not leave him. Meanwhile she was desolatedby thinking of her little sister. Of course she was safe, for Giacomoand Assunta were more trustworthy than the Italian government, but itmust be very stupid, and she had meant to give Daphne such a gay timeat the villa. She would write at once to some English friends at LakeScala, ten miles away, to see if they could not do something to relieveher sister's solitude. 

"To relieve my solitude!" gasped Daphne. "Oh I am so afraid somethingwill!"

There were several other letters, all from friends at home. One, in agreat square envelope, addressed with an English scrawl, she dreaded, and she kept it for the last. When she did tear it open her face grewquite pale. There was much in it about duty and consecration, and muchconcerning two lives sacrificed to the same great ideal. It breathedthoughts of denial and of annihilation of self, and, --yes, Eustace tookher at her word and was ready to welcome again the old relation. Ifshe would permit him, he would send back the ring. 

Hermes hid behind a stone and dashed out at his mistress to surpriseher, expecting to be chased as usual, but Daphne could not run. Withheavy feet and downcast eyes she walked along the green roadway, then, when her knees suddenly became weak, sat down on a stone and coveredher face with her hands. She had not known until this moment how shehad been hoping that two and two would not make four; she had notreally believed that this could be the result of her letter ofatonement. Her soul had traveled far since she wrote that letter, andit was hard to find the way back. Hiding the brown and purple distancesof the Campagna came pictures of dim, candle-lighted spaces, of a thinface with a setting of black and white priestly garments, and in herears was the sound of a voice endlessly intoning. It made up a visionof the impossible. 

She sat there a long, long time, and when she wakened to aconsciousness of where she was, it was a whining voice that roused her. 

"Signorina, for the love of heaven, give me a few soldi, for I amstarving. "

Daphne looked up and was startled, and yet old beggar women were commonenough sights here among the hills. This one had an evil look, withher cunning, half-shut eyes. 

The girl shook her head. 

"I have no money with me, " she remarked. 

"But Signorina, so young, so beautiful, surely she has money with her. "A dirty brown hand came all too close to Daphne's face, and she sprangto her feet. 

"I have spoken, " she said severely, giving a little stamp. "I havenone. Now go away. "

The whining continued, unintermittent. The old woman came closer, andher hand touched the girl's skirt. Wrenching herself away, Daphnefound herself in the grasp of two skinny arms, and an actual physicalstruggle began. The girl had no time for fear, and suddenly help came. A firm hand caught the woman's shoulder, and the victim was free. 

"Are you hurt?" asked Apollo anxiously. 

She shook her head, smiling. 

"Frightened?"

"No. Don't you always rescue me?"

"But this is merest accident, my being here. It really isn't safe foryou alone on these roads. "

"I knew you were near. "

"And yet, I have just this minute come round the hill. You could notpossibly have seen me. "

"I have ways of knowing, " said Daphne, smiling demurely. 

A faint little bleat interrupted them. 

"Oh, oh!" cried the girl, "she is running away with Hermes!"

Never did Apollo move more swiftly than he did then! Daphne followed, with flying feet. He reached the beggar woman, held her, took the lambwith one hand from her and handed it to Daphne. There followed a scenewhich the girl remembered afterward with a curious sense of misgivingand of question. The thief gave one glance at the beautiful, angryface of the man, then fell at his feet, groveling and beseeching. Whatshe was saying the girl did not know, but her face and figure bore alook of more than mortal fear. 

"What does she think him?" murmured the girl. Then she turned awaywith him, and, with the lamb at their heels, they walked together backalong the grassy road. 

"You look very serious, " remarked her protector. "You are sure it isnot fright?"

She shook her head, holding up her bundle of letters. 

"Bad news?"

"No, good, " she answered, smiling bravely. 

"I hope good news will be infrequent, " he answered. "You look likeIphigenia going to be sacrificed. "

"I will admit that there is a problem, " said the girl. "There's aquestion about my doing something. "

"And you know it must be right to do it because you hate it?" he asked. 

She nodded. 

"Don't you think so, too? Now when you answer, " she added triumphantly, "I shall know what kind of god you are. "

They had reached the turning of the ways, and he stopped, as ifintending to leave her. "I cannot help you, " he said sadly, "for I donot know the case. Only, I think it is best not to decide by anyabstruse rule. Life is life's best teacher, and out of one's lastexperience comes insight for the next. But don't be too sure that dutyand unhappiness are one. "

She left him, standing by the little wayside shrine with a strange lookon his face. A tortured Christ hung there, casting the shadow of painupon the passers-by. The expression in the brown eyes of the heathengod haunted her all the way down the hill, and throughout the day:they seemed to understand, and yet be glad. 

CHAPTER X

It was nine o'clock as the Signorina descended the stairs. Through theopen doorway morning met her, crisp and cool, with sunshine touchinggrass and green branch, still wet with dew. The very footfalls of thegirl on the shallow marble steps were eager and expectant, and her facewas gayer than those of the nymphs in the frescoes on the wall. At thebottom of the stairs, Giacomo met her, his face wreathed in smiles. 

"Bertuccio has returned, " he announced. 

"Si, si, Signorina, " came the voice of Assunta, who was pushing her waythrough the dining-room door behind Giacomo. She had on her magentaSunday shawl, and the color of her wrinkled cheeks almost matched it. 

"What is Bertuccio?" asked the girl. "A kitten?"

"A kitten!" gasped Assunta. 

"Corpo di Bacco!" swore Giacomo. 

Then the two brown ones devoted mind and body to explanation. Giacomogesticulated and waved the napkin he had in his hand; Assunta shook herblack silk apron: and they both spoke at once. 

"Il mio Bertuccio! It is my little son, Signorina, and my only, andthe Signorina has never seen his like. When he was three years old hewore clothing for five years, and now he is six inches taller than hisfather. "

This and much more said Assunta, and she said it as one word. Giacomo, keeping pace and giving syllable for syllable, remarked:--

"It is our Bertuccio who has been working in a tunnel in the ItalianAlps, and has come home for rest. He is engineer, Signorina, and hasgenius. And before he became this he was guide here in the mountains, and he knows every path, every stone, every tree. "

"What?" asked Daphne feebly. 

Then, in a multitude of words that darkened knowledge, they said it allover again. Bertuccio, the light of their eyes, the sole hope of theirold age, had come home. He could be the Signorina's guide among thehills, being very strong, very trusty, molto forte, molto fedele. 

"Oh, I know!" cried the Signorina, with a sudden light in her face. "Bertuccio is your son!"

"Si, si, si, Signorina!" exclaimed Giacomo and Assunta together, ushering her into the dining-room. 

"It is the blessed saints who have managed it, " added Assunta devoutly. "A wreath of flowers from Rome, all gauze and spangles, will I lay atthe shrine of our Lady, and there shall be a long red ribbon to say mythanks in letters of gold. "

The hope of the house was presented to the Signorina after breakfast. He was a broad-shouldered, round-headed offshoot of Italian soil, withhonest brown eyes like those of both father and mother. It was a faceto be trusted, Daphne knew, and when, recovering from the embarrassmentcaused by his parents' pride in him, he blurted out the fact that hehad already been to the village that morning to find a little donkeyfor the Signorina's wider journeyings, the girl welcomed the plan withdelight. Grinning with pride Bertuccio disappeared among the stables, and presently returned, leading an asinetto. It was a little, dun-colored thing, wearing a red-tasseled bridle and a small sheepskinsaddle with red girth, but all the gay trappings could not soften theold primeval sadness of the donkey's face, under his long, questioningears. So Daphne won palfrey and cavalier. 

In the succeeding days the two jogged for hours together over themountain roads. Now they followed some grassy path climbing gentlyupward to the site of a buried town, where only mound and gray fragmentof stone marked garden and forum. Here was a bit of wall, with a touchof gay painting mouldering on an inner surface, --Venus, in robe of red, rising from a daintily suggested sea in lines of green. They gatheredfragments of old mosaic floor in their hands, blue lapis lazuli, yellowbits of giallo antico, red porphyry, trodden by gay feet and sad, unnumbered years ago. They found broken pieces of iridescent glassthat had fallen, perhaps, from shattered wine cups of the emperors, andall these treasures Bertuccio stored away in his wide pockets. Again, they climbed gracious heights and looked down over slopes and valleys, where deep grass grew over rich, crumbling earth, deposit of deadvolcanoes, or saw, circled by soft green hills, some mountain lake, reflecting the perfect blue of Italian sky. 

Bertuccio usually walked behind; Daphne rode on ahead, with the sunburning her cheeks, and the air, fragrant with the odor of lateripening grapes on the upper hillsides, bringing intoxication. Sheseemed to herself so much a thing of falling rain, rich earth, andwakening sunshines that she would not have been surprised to find thepurple bloom of those same grapes gathering on her cheeks, or her softwisps of hair curling into tendrils, or spreading into green vineleaves. They usually came home in the splendor of sunset, tired, happy, the red of Daphne's felt hat, the gorgeousness of Bertuccio'sblue trousers and yellow waistcoat lighting the gloom of the cool, green-shaded ways. Hermes always ran frisking to meet them, outstripping by his swiftness the slow plodding of the little ass. Perhaps the lambkin felt the shadow of a certain neglect through theselong absences, but at least he was generous and loved his rival. Quitting the kitchen and dining-room, he chose for his portion thepasture where the donkey grazed, in silence and in sadness, and friskeddangerously near his comrade's heels. For all his melancholy, theasinetto was not insensible to caresses, and at night, when the lambcuddled close to him as the two lay in the grass in the darkness, wouldcurl his nose round now and then protectingly to see how this smallthing fared. 

So Daphne kept forgetting, forgetting, and nothing recalled her to herperplexity, except her donkey. San Pietro Martire she named him, foron his face was written the patience and the suffering of the saints. Some un-Italian sense of duty stiffened his hard little legs, gaverigid strength to his back. Willing to trudge on with his load, willing to rest, carrying his head a little bent, blinking mournfullyat the world from under the drab hair on his forehead, San Pietro stoodas a type of the disciplined and chastened soul. His very way ofcropping the grass had something ascetic in it, reminding his mistressof Eustace at a festive dinner. 

"San Pietro, San Pietro, " said Daphne one day, when Bertuccio wasplodding far in the rear, whistling as he followed, "San Pietro, must Ido it?"

There was a drooping forward of the ears, a slight bending of the head, as the little beast put forth more strength to meet the difficulty ofrising ground. 

"San Pietro, do you know what you are advising? Do you at all realizewhat it is to be a clergyman's wife?"

The steady straining of the donkey's muscles seemed to say that, towhatever station in life it pleased Providence to call him, he wouldthink only of duty. 

Then Daphne alighted and sat on a stone, with the donkey's face tohers, taking counsel of those long ears which were always eloquent, whether pricked forward in expectation or laid back in wrath. 

"San Pietro, if I should give it up, and stay here and live, --for Inever knew before what living is, --if I should just try to keep thissunshine and these great spaces of color, what would you think of me?"

Eyes, ears, and the tragic corners of the mouth revealed the thought ofthis descendant of the burden bearers for all the earth's thousands ofyears. 

"Little beast, little beast, " said Daphne, burying her face in thebrownish fuzz of his neck, and drying her eyes there, "you are the onething in this land of beauty that links me with home. You are thePilgrim Fathers and the Catechism in one! You are the PuritanConscience made visible! I will do it; I promise. "

San Pietro Martire looked round with mild inquiry on his face as to themeaning and the purpose of caresses in a hard world like this. 

CHAPTER XI

Bertuccio sprawled on his stomach on the grassy floor of the presencechamber in a palace of the Caesars', kicking with one idle foot a bitof stone that had once formed the classic nose of a god. San PietroMartire was quietly grazing in the long spaces of the Philosophers'Hall, nibbling deftly green blades of grass that grew at the bases ofthe broken pillars. Near by lay the old amphitheatre, with its roof ofblue sky, and its rows of grassy seats, circling a level stage and pit, and rising, one above another, in irregular outlines of green. Here, in the spot on which the central royal seat had once been erected, satDaphne on her Scotch plaid steamer blanket: her head was leaning backagainst the turf, her lips were slightly parted, her eyes half closed. She thought that she was meditating on the life that had gone on inthis Imperial villa two thousand years ago: its banquets, itsphilosophers' disputes, its tragedies and comedies played here withtears and laughter. In reality she was half asleep. 

They were only a half mile from home, measuring by a straight linethrough the intervening hill; in time they were two hours away. SanPietro had climbed gallantly, with little silvery bells tinkling at hisears, to the summit of the mountain, and had descended, with convictionand with accuracy, planting firm little hard hoofs in the slippery pathwhere the dark soil bore a coating of green grass and moss. For alltheir hard morning's work they were still on the confines of the VillaGianelli, whose kingdom was partly a kingdom of air and of mountain. 

Drowsing there in the old theatre in the sun, Daphne presently saw, stepping daintily through one of the entrances at the side, an audienceof white sheep. They overspread the stage, cropping as they went. They climbed the green encircling seats, leaping up or down, where asofter tuft of grass invited. They broke the dreamy silence with themuffled sound of their hoofs, and an occasional bleat. 

The girl knew them now. She had seen before the brown-faced twins, both wearing tiny horns; they always kept together. She knew the greatwhite ewe with a blue ribbon on her neck, and the huge ram with twistedhorns that made her half afraid. Would he mind Scotch plaid, shewondered, as he raised his head and eyed her? She sat alert, ready forswift flight up the slope behind her in case of attack, but he turnedto his pasture in the pit with the air of one ready to waive trifles, and the girl leaned back again. 

When Apollo, the keeper of sheep, entered, Daphne received his greetingwith no surprise: even if he had come without these forerunners shewould have known that he was near. It was she who broke the silence ashe approached. 

"A theatre seems a singularly appropriate place for you and yourflock, " she remarked. "You make a capital actor. "

There was no laughter in his eyes to-day and he did not answer. Awistful look veiled the triumphant gladness of his face. 

"They didn't play pastorals in olden time, did they?" asked Daphne. 

"No, " he answered, "they lived them. When they had forgotten how to dothat they began to act. "

He took a flute from his pocket and began to play. A cry rang outthrough the gladness of the notes, and it brought tears to the girl'seyes. He stopped, seeing them there, and put the flute back into hispocket. 

"Did you take my advice the other day?" he asked. 

"The advice was very general, " said Daphne. "I presume an oracle'salways is. No, I did not follow it. "

"Antigone, Antigone, " he murmured. 

"Why Antigone?" demanded the girl. 

"Because your duty is dearer to you than life, and love. "

"Please go down there, " said the girl impetuously, "and play Antigonefor me. Make me see it and feel it. I have been sitting here for anhour wishing that I could realize here a tragedy of long ago. "

He bowed submissively. 

"Commands from Caesar's seat must always be obeyed, " he observed. "Doyou know Greek, Antigone?"

She nodded. 

"I know part of this play by heart, " she faltered. "My father taughtme Greek words when I was small enough to ride his foot. "

He stepped down among the sheep to the grassy stage, laying aside hishat and letting the sun sparkle on his bright hair. The odd sheepskincoat lent a touch of grotesqueness to his beauty as he began. 

"'Nay, be thou what thou wilt; but I will bury him: well for me to diein doing that. I shall rest, a loved one with him whom I have loved, sinless in my crime; for I owe a longer allegiance to the dead than tothe living: in that world I shall abide forever. '"

Slow, full, and sweet the words came, beating like music on the girl'sheart. All the sorrow of earth seemed gathered up in the undertones, all its hunger and thirst for life and love: in it rang the voice of awill stronger than death and strong as love. 

The sheep lifted their heads and looked on anxiously, as if for amoment even the heart of a beast were touched by human sorrow. Fromover the highest ridge of this green amphitheatre San Pietro lookeddown with the air of one who had nothing more to learn of woe. Apollostood in the centre of the stage, taking one voice, then another: nowthe angry tone of the tyrant, Creon, now the wail of the chorus, hurtbut undecided, then breaking into the unspeakable sweetness andfirmness of Antigone's tones. The sheep went back to their nibbling;San Pietro trotted away with his jingling bells, but Daphne sat withher face leaning on her hands, and slow tears trickling over herfingers. 

The despairing lover's cry broke in on Antigone's sorrow; Haemon, "bitter for the baffled hope of his marriage, " pleaded with his fatherCreon for the life of his beloved. Into his arguments for mercy andjustice crept that cry of the music on the hills that had soundedthrough lonely hours in Daphne's ears. It was the old call of passion, pleading, imperious, irresistible, and the girl on Caesar's seatanswered to it as harp strings answer to the master's hand. The wailof Antigone seemed to come from the depths of her own being:--

"Bear me witness, in what sort, unwept of friends, and by what laws Ipass to the rock-closed prison of my strange tomb, ah me unhappy!... No bridal bed, no bridal song hath been mine, no joy of marriage. "

The sun hung low above the encircling hills when the lover's last crysounded in the green theatre, drowning grief in triumph as he chosedeath with his beloved before all other good. Then there was silence, while the round, golden sun seemed resting in a red-gold haze on thehilltop, and Daphne, sitting with closed eyes, felt the touch of twohands upon her own. 

"Did you understand?" asked a voice that broke in its tenderness. 

She nodded, with eyes still closed, for she dared not trust them open. He bent and kissed her hands, where the tears had fallen on them, then, turning, called his sheep. Three minutes later there was no trace ofhim or of them: they had vanished as if by magic, leaving silence andshadow. The girl climbed the hill toward home on San Pietro's back, shaken, awed, afraid. 

CHAPTER XII

If Bertuccio had but shown any signs of having seen her companion ofyesterday, Daphne's bewilderment would have been less; but to keepmeeting a being who claimed to belong to another world, who came andwent, invisible, it would seem, when he chose, to other eyes except herown, might well rouse strange thoughts in the mind of a girl cut offfrom her old life in the world of commonplace events. To be sure, theshepherd Antoli had seen him, but had spoken of him voluntarily as amysterious creature, one of the blessed saints come down to aid thesick. The beggar woman had seen him, but had fallen prostrate at hisfeet as in awe of supernatural presence. When the wandering god hadtalked across the hedge the eyes of Giacomo and Assunta had apparentlybeen holden; and now Bertuccio, whose ears were keen, and whose eyes, in their lazy Italian fashion, saw more then they ever seemed to, Bertuccio had been all the afternoon within a stone's throw of theplace where the god had played to her, and Bertuccio gave no sign ofhaving seen a man. She eyed him questioningly as they started out thenext morning on their way to the ruins of some famous baths on themountain facing them. 

There was keenness in the autumn air that morning, but the green slopesfar and near bore no trace of flaming color or of decay, as in fall athome; it was rather like a glimpse of some cool, eternal spring. Astream of water trickled down under thick grass at the side of theroad, and violets grew there. 

"San Pietro!" said Daphne, with a little tug at the bridle. The longears were jerked hastily back to hear what was to come. "I know youdisapprove of me, for you saw it all. "

The ears kept that position in which any one who has ever loved adonkey recognizes scathing criticism. Daphne fingered one of them withher free hand. 

"It is only on your back that I feel any strength of mind, " she added. "When I am by myself something seems sweeping me away, as the tidessweep driftwood out to sea; but here, resolution crawls up through mybody. We must be a new kind of centaur, San Pietro. "

Suddenly her face went down between his ears. 

"But if you and I united do drive him away, what shall wedo, --afterwards?"

"Signorina!" called Bertuccio, running up behind them. "Look! Theolives pick themselves. "

At a turn in the road the view had opened. There, in a great orchardon the side of the hill, the peasants were gathering olives before thecoming of the frost. There were scores of pickers wearing greatgay-colored aprons in which they placed the olives as they gatheredthem from the trees. Ladders leaned against knotty tree trunks;baskets filled with the green fruit stood on the ground. Ladder andbasket suggested the apple orchards of her native land, but the motleycolors of kerchief and apron, yellow, magenta, turquoise, and green, and the gray of the eternal olive trees with the deep blue of the skybehind them, recalled her to the enchanted country where she was fastlosing the landmarks of home. 

"Signorina Daphne, " said Bertuccio, speaking slowly as to a child, "didyou ever hear them tell of the maiden on the hills up here who wascarried away by a god?"

Daphne turned swiftly and tried to read his face. It was no lessexpressionless than usual. 

"No, " she answered. "Tell me. I am fond of stories. "

They were climbing the winding road again, leaving the olive pickersbehind. Bertuccio walked near, holding the donkey's tail to steady hissteps. 

"It was long ago, ages and ages. Her father had the care of an oliveorchard that was old, older than our Lord, " said Bertuccio, devoutlycrossing himself. "There was one tree in it that was enormously big, as large as this, --see the measure of my arms! It was open and hollow, but growing as olives will when there is every reason why they shouldbe dead. One night the family were eating their polenta--has theSignorina tasted our polenta? It makes itself from chestnuts, and itis very good. I must speak to my mother to offer some to theSignorina. Well, the door opened without any knocking, and a strangerstood there: he was young, and beyond humanity, beautiful. "

Bertuccio paused; the girl felt slow red climbing to her cheek. Shedared not look behind, yet she would have given half her possessions tosee the expression of his face. Leaning forward, she played with thered tassels at San Pietro's ears. 

"Go on! go on!" she commanded. "Avanti!"

San Pietro thought that the words were meant for him, and indeed theywere more appropriate here for donkey than for man. 

"He sat with them and shared their polenta, " continued Bertuccio, walking more rapidly to keep up with San Pietro's quickened step. "Andhe made them all afraid. It was not that he had any terrible look, orthat he did anything strange, only, each glance, each motion told thathe was more than merely man. And he looked at the maiden with eyes oflove, and she at him, " said Bertuccio, lacking art to keep his hearerin suspense. "She too was beautiful, as beautiful, perhaps, as theSignorina, " continued the story-teller. 

Daphne looked at him sharply: did he mean any further comparison?There were hot waves now on neck and face, and her heart was beatingfuriously. 

"He came often, and he always met the maiden by the hollow tree: it waslarge enough for them to stand inside. And her father and mother weretroubled, for they knew he was a god, not one of our faith, Signorina, but one of the older gods who lived here before the coming of our Lord. One day as he stood there by the tree and was kissing the maiden on hermouth, her father came, very angry, and scolded her, and defied thegod, telling him to go away and never show his face there again. Andthen, he never knew how it happened, for the stranger did not touchhim, but he fell stunned to the ground, with a queer flash of light inhis eyes. When he woke, the stars were shining over him, and hecrawled home. But the maiden was gone, and they never saw her anymore, Signorina. Whether it was for good or for ill, she had beencarried away by the god. People think that they disappeared inside thetree, for it closed up that night, and it never opened again. Sometimes they thought they heard voices coming from it, and once ortwice, cries and sobs of a woman. Maybe she is imprisoned there andcannot get out: it would be a terrible fate, would it not, Signorina?Me, I think it is better to fight shy of the heathen gods. "

Bertuccio's white teeth showed in a broad smile, but no scrutiny onDaphne's part could tell her whether he had told his story for pleasuremerely, or for warning. She rode on in silence, realizing, as she hadnot realized before, how far this peasant stock reached back into theelder days of the ancient world. 

"Do you think that your story is true, Bertuccio?" she asked, as theycame in sight of the grass-grown mounds of the buried watering-placetoward which their steps were bent. 

"Ma che!" answered Bertuccio, shrugging his shoulders, and snapping hisfingers meaningly. "So much is true that one does not see, and onecannot believe all that one does see. "

Daphne started. What HAD he seen?

"Besides, " added Bertuccio, "there is proof of this. My father'sfather saw the olive tree, and it was quite closed. "

CHAPTER XIII

Over the shallow tufa basin of the great fountain on the hill Daphnestood gazing into the water. She had sought the deep shadow of theilex trees, for the afternoon was warm, an almost angry summer heathaving followed yesterday's coolness. Her yellow gown gleamed likelight against the dull brown of the stone and the dark moss-touchedtrunks of the trees. Whether she was looking at the tufts of fern andof grass that grew in the wet basin, or whether she was studying herown beauty reflected there, no one could tell, not even Apollo, who hadbeen watching her for some time. 

Into his eyes as he looked leaped a light like the flame of thesunshine beyond the shadows on the hill; swiftly he stepped forward andkissed the girl's shoulder where the thin yellow stuff of her dressshowed the outward curve to the arm. She turned and faced him, withouta word. There was no need of speech: anger battled with unconfessedjoy in her changing face. 

"How dare you?" she said presently, when she had won her lips to curvesof scorn. "The manners of the gods seem strange to mortals. "

"I love you, " he answered simply. 

Then there was no sound save that of the water, dropping over the edgeof the great basin to the soft grass beneath. 

"Can't you forgive me?" he asked humbly. "I am profoundly sorry; only, my temptation was superhuman. "

"I had thought that you were that, too, " said the girl in a whisper. 

"There is no excuse, I know; there is only a reason. I love you, little girl. I love your questioning eyes, and your firm mouth, andyour smooth brown hair"--

"Stop!" begged Daphne, putting out her hands. "You must not say suchthings to me, for I am not free to hear them. I must go away, " and sheturned toward home. But he grasped one of the outstretched hands anddrew her to the stone bench near the fountain, and then seated himselfnear her side. 

"Now tell me what you mean, " he said quietly. 

"I mean, " she answered, with her eyes cast down, "that two years ago Ipromised to love some one else. I must not even hear what you aretrying to say to me. "

"I think, Miss Willis, " he said gently, "that you should have told methis before. "

"How could I?" begged the girl. "When could I have done it? Why shouldI?"

"I do not know, " he answered wearily; "only, perhaps it might havespared me some shade of human anguish. "

"Human?" asked Daphne, almost smiling. 

"No, no, no, " he interrupted, not hearing her. "It would not have doneany good, for I have loved you from the first minute when I saw yourblue drapery flutter in your flight from me. Some deeper sense thanmortals have told me that every footstep was falling on my sleepingheart and waking it to life. You were not running away; in some divinesense you were coming toward me. Daphne, Daphne, I cannot let you go!"

The look in the girl's startled eyes was his only answer. By the sideof this sun-browned face, in its beauty and its power, rose before hera vision of Eustace Denton, pale, full-lipped, with an ardor fornothingness in his remote blue eyes. How could she have known, inthose old days before her revelation came, that faces like this were onthe earth: how could she have dreamed that glory of life like this waspossible?

In the great strain of the moment they both grew calm and Daphne toldhim her story, as much of it as she thought it wise for him to know. Her later sense of misgiving, the breaking of the engagement, thepenitence that had led to a renewal of the bonds, she concealed fromhim; but he learned of the days of study and of quiet work in theshaded corners of her father's library, and of those gayer days andevenings when the figure of the young ascetic had seemed to the girl tohave a peculiar saving grace, standing in stern contrast to the socialbackground of her life. 

He thanked her, when she had finished, and he watched her, with herbackground of misty blue distance, sitting where the shadow of theilexes brought out the color of her scarlet lips and deep gray eyes. 

"Daphne, " he said presently, "you have told me much about this man, butyou have not told me that you love him. You do not speak of him as awoman speaks of the man who makes her world for her. You defend him, you explain him, you plead his cause, and it must be that you arepleading it with yourself, for I have brought no charge, that you mustdefend him to me. Do you love him?"

She did not answer. 

"Look at me!" he insisted. Her troubled eyes turned toward his, butdared not stay, and the lashes fell again. 

"Do not commit the crime of marrying a man you do not love, " he pleaded. 

"But, " said the girl slowly, "even if I gave him up I might not carefor you. "

"Dear, " he said softly, "you do love me. Is it not so?"

She shook her head, but her face belied her. 

"I have waited, waited for you, " he pleaded, in that low tone to whichher being vibrated as to masterful music, "so many lifetimes! I havefound you out at last!"

"How long?" she asked willfully. 

"Aeons, " he answered. "Since the foundation of the world. I havewaited, and now that I have found you, I will not let you go. I willnot let you go!"

She looked at him with wide-opened eyes: a solemn fear possessed her. Was it Bertuccio's story of yesterday that filled her with foreboding?Hardly. Rather it seemed a pleasant thought that he and she shouldfeel the bark of one of these great trees closing round them, andshould have so beautiful a screen of brown bark and green moss to hidetheir love from all the world. No, no fear could touch the thought ofany destiny with him: she was afraid only of herself. 

"You are putting a mere nothing between us, " the voice went on. "Youare pretending that there is an obstacle when there is none, really. "

"Only another man's happiness, " murmured the girl. 

"I doubt if he knows what happiness is, " said Apollo. "Forgive me, butwill he not be as happy with his altar candles and his chants withoutyou? Does he not care more for the abstract cause for which he isworking than for you? Hasn't he missed the simple meaning of humanlife, and can anything teach it to him?"

"How did you know?" asked Daphne, startled. 

"The gods should divine some things that are not told! Besides, I knowthe man, " he answered, smiling, but Daphne did not hear. She had leanedback and closed her eyes. The warm, sweet air, with its odor of earth, wooed her; the little breeze that made so faint a rustle in the ilexleaves touched her cheek like quick, fluttering kisses. The rhythmicaldrops from the fountain seemed falling to the music of an old order ofthings, some simple, elemental way of loving that made harmony throughall life. Could love, that had meant only duty, have anything to dowith this great joy in mere being, which turned the world to gold?

"I must, I must win you, " came the voice again, and it was like a cry. "Loving with more than human love, I will not be denied!"

She opened her eyes and watched him: the whole, firmly-knit frame inthe brown golf-suit was quivering. 

"It has never turned out well, " she said lightly, "when the sons of thegods married with the daughters of men. "

Perhaps he would have rebuked her for the jest, but he saw her face. 

"I offer you all that man or god can offer, " he said, standing beforeher. "I offer you the devotion of a whole life. Will you take it?"

"I will not break my promise, " said the girl, rising. Her eyes werelevel with his. She found such power in them that she cried outagainst it in sudden anger. 

"Why do you tempt me so? Why do you come and trouble my mind and takeaway my peace? Who are you? What are you?"

"If you want a human name for me"--he answered. 

She raised her hand swiftly to stop him. "No, don't!" she said. "I donot want to know. Don't tell me anything, for the mystery is part ofthe beauty of you. "

A shaft of golden sunlight pierced the ilex shade and smote herforehead as she stood there. 

"Apollo, the sun god, " she said, smiling, as she turned and left himalone. 

CHAPTER XIV

Overhead was a sky of soft, dusky blue, broken by the clear light ofthe stars: all about were the familiar walks of the villa garden, mysterious now in the darkness, and seeming to lead into infinitespace. The lines of aloe, fig, and palm stood like shadows guarding aworld of mystery. Daphne, wandering alone in the garden at midnight, half exultant, half afraid, stepped noiselessly along the pebbled walkswith a feeling that that world was about to open for her. Ahead, through an arch where the thick foliage of the ilexes had been cut toleave the way clear for the passer-by, a single golden planet shone lowin the west, and the garden path led to it. 

Daphne had been unable to sleep, for sleeplessness had become a habitduring the past week. Whether she was too happy or too unhappy shecould not tell: she only knew that she was restless and smothering forair and space. Hastily dressing, she had stolen on tiptoe down thebroad stairway by the running water and out into the night, carrying atiny Greek lamp with a single flame, clear, as only the flame of oliveoil can be. She had put the lamp down in the doorway, and it wasburning there now, a beacon to guide her footsteps when she wanted toreturn. Meanwhile, the air was cool on throat and forehead and on heropen palms: she had no wish to go in. 

Here was a fountain whose jets of water, blown high from the mouths ofmerry dolphins, fell in spray in a great stone basin where mermaidswaited for the shower to touch bare shoulders and bended heads. Themurmur of the water, mingled with the murmur of unseen live things, andthe melody of night touched the girl's discordant thoughts to music. Of what avail, after all, was her fierce struggle for duty? Here weresoft shadows, and great spaces, and friendly stars. 

Of course her lover-god, Apollo, was gone. She had known the other daywhen she left him on the hill that she would not see him again, for thelook of his face had told her that. Of course, it was better so. Now, everything would go on as had been intended. Anna would come home;after this visit was over, there would be New York again, and Eustace. Yes, she was brave to share his duty with him, and the years would notbe long. And always these autumn days would be shining through thedark hours of her life, these perfect days of sunshine without shadow. Of their experiences she need not even tell, for she was not sure thatit had actually been real. She would keep it as a sacred memory thatwas half a dream. 

She was walking now by the rows of tall chrysanthemums, and she reachedout her fingers to touch them, for she could almost feel their deepyellow through her finger-tips. It was like taking counsel of them, and they, like all nature, were wise. Cypress and acacia and palmstood about like strong comforters; help came from the tangled vinesupon the garden wall, from the matted periwinkle on the ground at herfeet, and the sweet late roses blossoming in the dark. 

Yes, he was gone, and the beauty and the power of him had vanished. Itwas better so, she kept saying to herself, her thoughts, no matterwhere they wandered, coming persistently back, as if the idea, soobviously true, needed proving after all. The only thing was, shewould have liked to see him just once more to show him how invincibleshe was. He had taken her by surprise that day upon the hill, and hadseen what she had not meant to tell. Now, if she could confront himonce, absolutely unshaken, could tell him her decision, give him wordsof dismissal in a voice that had no tremor in it, as her voice had hadthe other day, that would be a satisfactory and triumphant parting forone who had come badly off. Her shoulder burned yet where he hadkissed it, and yet she was not angry. He must have known that day howlittle she was vexed. If she could only see him once again, she saidwistfully to herself, to show him how angry she was, all would be well. 

Daphne had wandered to the great stone gate that led out upon thehighway, and was leaning her forehead against a moss-grown post, whenshe heard a sudden noise. Then the voice of San Pietro Martire brokethe stillness of the night, and Daphne, listening, thought she heard afaint sound of bleating. Hermes was calling her, and Hermes was indanger. Up the long avenue she ran toward the house, and, seizing thetiny lamp at the doorway, sped up the slope toward the inclosure wherethe two animals grazed, the flame making a trail of light like that ofa firefly moving swiftly in the darkness. The bray rang out again, butthere was no second sound of bleating. Inside the pasture gate shefound the donkey anxiously sniffing at something that lay in the grass. Down on her knees went Daphne, for there lay Hermes stretched out onhis side, with traces of blood at his white throat. 

The girl put down her lamp and lifted him in her arms. Some cowardlydog had done this thing, and had run away on seeing her, or hearing herunfasten the gate. She put one finger on the woolly bosom, but theheart was not beating. The lamb's awkward legs were stretched outquite stiffly, and his eyes were beginning to glaze. Two tears droppedon the fat white side; then Daphne bent and kissed him. Looking up, she saw San Pietro gazing on with the usual grief of his faceintensified. It was as if he understood that the place at his backwhere the lamb had cuddled every night must go cold henceforward. 

"We must bury him, San Pietro, " said Daphne presently. "Come help mefind a place. "

She put the lambkin gently down upon the ground, and, rising, started, with one arm over San Pietro's neck, to find a burial place for thedead. The donkey followed willingly, for he permitted himself to lovehis lady with a controlled but genuine affection; and together theysearched by the light of the firefly lamp. At last Daphne halted by adiminutive cypress, perhaps two feet high, and announced that she wascontent. 

The tool-house was not far away. Investigating, she found, as she hadhoped, that the door was not locked. Arming herself with a hoe shecame back, and, under the light of southern stars, dug a little gravein the soft, dark earth, easily loosened in its crumbling richness. Then she took the lamp and searched in the deep thick grass forflowers, coming back with a mass of pink-tipped daisies gathered in herskirt. The sight of the brown earth set her to thinking: there oughtto be some kind of shroud. Near the tool-house grew a laurel tree, sheremembered, and from that she stripped a handful of green, glossyleaves, to spread upon the bottom of the grave. This done, she borethe body of Hermes to his resting-place, and strewed the corpse withpink daisies. 

"Should he have Christian or heathen burial?" she asked, smiling. "Thisseems to be a place where the two faiths meet. I think neither. Hemust just be given back to Mother Nature. "

She heaped the sod over him with her own hands, and fitted neatlytogether some bits of turf. Then she took up her lamp to go. SanPietro, tired of ceremony, was grazing in the little circle of light. 

"To-morrow, " said Daphne, as she went down the hill, "he will be eatinggrass from Hermes' grave. "

CHAPTER XV

The shadow of branching palms fell on the Signorina's hair and hands asshe sat at work near the fountain in the garden weaving a great wreathof wild cyclamen and of fern gathered from the hillside. Assunta waswatching her anxiously, her hands resting on her hips. 

"It's a poor thing to offer the Madonna, " she said at length, "justcommon things that grow. "

Daphne only smiled at her and went on winding white cord about thestems under green fronds where it could not be seen. 

"I was ready to buy a wreath of beautiful gauze flowers from Rome, "ventured Assunta, "all colors, red and yellow and purple. I have plentyof silver for it upstairs in a silk bag. Our Lady will think I am notthankful, though the blessed saints know I have never been so thankfulin my life as I am for Bertuccio's coming home when he did. "

"The Madonna will know, " said Daphne. "She will like this better thananything else. "

"Are you sure?" asked Assunta dubiously. 

"Yes, " asserted the girl, laughing. "She told me so!"

The audacity of the remark had an unexpected effect on the peasantwoman. Assunta crossed herself. 

"Perhaps she did! Perhaps she did! And do you think she does not mindmy waiting?"

"No, " answered Daphne gravely. "She knows that you have been very busytaking care of me. "

Assunta trotted away, apparently content, to consult Giacomo aboutdinner. The girl went on weaving with busy fingers, the shadow of herlashes on her cheek. As she worked her thoughts wove for her the onepicture that they made always for her now: Apollo standing on thehillside under the ilexes with the single ray of sunshine touching hisface. All the rest of her life kept fading, leaving the minutes ofthat afternoon alone distinct. And it was ten days ago!

Presently Giacomo came hurrying down the path toward her, dangling hiswhite apron by its string as he ran. 

"Signorina!" he called breathlessly. "Would the Signorina, when shehas finished that, graciously make another wreath?"

"Certainly. For you?"

"Not for me, " he answered mysteriously, drawing nearer. "Not for me, but for Antoli, the shepherd who herds the flock of Count Gianelli. Hehas seen from the window the Signorina making a wreath for our Lady, and he too wants to present her with a thank-offering for the miracleshe wrought for him. But will the Signorina permit him to come andtell her?"

Even while Giacomo was speaking Daphne saw the man slowly approaching, urged on apparently by encouraging gestures from Assunta, who wasstanding at the corner of the house. A thrill went through the girl'snerves as she saw the rough brown head of the peasant rising above thesheepskin coat that the shepherd-god had worn. Unless miracle had madeanother like it, it was the very same, even to the peculiar jagged edgewhere it met in front. 

Antoli's expression was foolish and ashamed, but at Giacomo's biddingbe began a recital of his recent experiences. The girl strained herears to listen, but hardly a word of this dialect of the Roman hillswas intelligible to her. 

The gesture wherewith the shepherd crossed himself, and his devoutpointing to the sky were all she really understood. 

Then Giacomo translated. 

"Because he was ill--but the Signorina knows the story--the blessedSaint Sebastian came down to him and guarded the sheep, and he wenthome and became well, miraculously well. See how he is recovered fromhis fever! It was our Lady who wrought it all. Now he comes back andall his flock is there: not one is missing, but all are fat andflourishing. Does not the Signorina believe that it was some one fromanother world who helped him?"

"Si, " answered Daphne, looking at the sheepskin coat. 

"No one has seen the holy saint except himself, but the blessed one hasappeared again to him. Antoli came back, afraid that the sheep werescattered, afraid of being dismissed. He found his little tent inorder; food was there, and better food than shepherds have, eggs andwine and bread. While he waited the blessed one himself came, withlight shining about his hair. He brought back the coat that he hadworn: see, is it not proof that he was there?"

"The coat was a new one, " interrupted the shepherd. 

Giacomo repeated, and went on. 

"He smiled and talked most kindly, and when he went away--the Signorinaunderstands?"

Daphne nodded. 

"He gave his hand to Antoli, " said Giacomo breathlessly. 

"I will make the wreath, " said the Signorina, smiling. "It shall be ofthese, " and she held up a handful of pink daisies, mingled with bits offern and ivy leaves. "Assunta shall take it to the church when shetakes hers. I rejoice that you are well, " she added, turning to Antoliwith a polite sentence from the phrase-book. 

As she worked on after they were gone, Assunta came to her again. 

"The Signorina heard?" she asked. 

"Si. Is the story true?" asked Daphne. 

Assunta's eyes were full of hidden meaning. 

"The Signorina ought to know. "

"Why?"

"Has not the Signorina seen the blessed one herself?" she asked. 

"I?" said Daphne, starting. 

"The night the lambkin was killed, did not the Signorina go out ingreat distress, and did not the blessed one come to her aid?"

"Ma che!" exclaimed Daphne faintly, falling back, in her astonishment, upon Assunta's vocabulary. 

"I have told no one, not even Giacomo, " said Assunta, "but I saw itall. The noise had wakened me, and I followed, but I stopped when Isaw that the divine one was there. Only I watched from the clump ofcypress trees. "

"Where was he?" asked Daphne with unsteady voice. 

"Beyond the laurel trees, " said Assunta. "Did not the Signorina see?"

The girl shook her head. 

"How did you know that he was one of the divine?" she asked. 

"Can I not tell the difference between mortal man and one of them?"cried the peasant woman scornfully. "It was the shining of his face, and the light about his hair, Signorina. Every look and every motionshowed that he was not of this world. Besides, how could I see him inthe dark if he were not the blessed Saint Sebastian? And who sent thedog away if it was not he?" she added triumphantly. 

"But why should he appear to me?" asked Daphne. "I have no claim uponthe help of the saints. "

"Perhaps because the Signorina is a heretic, " answered Assuntatenderly. "Our Lady must have special care for her if she sends outthe holy ones to bring her to the fold. "

The woman's face was alight with reverence and pride, and Daphne turnedback to her flowers, shamed by these peasant folk for their belief inthe immanence of the divine. 

Half an hour later Assunta reappeared, clad in Sunday garments, wearingher best coral earrings and her little black silk shoulder shawlcovered with gay embroidered flowers. She held out a letter to thegirl. 

"I go to take the wreaths to Our Lady, " she announced, "and to confessand pray. The Signorina has made them pretty, if they are but commonthings. "

Daphne was reading her letter; even the peasant woman could see that itbore glad tidings, for the light that broke in the girl's face was likethe coming of dawn over the hills. 

"Wait, Assunta, " she said quietly, when she had finished, and shedisappeared among the trees. In a minute she came back with threecrimson roses, single, and yellow at the heart. 

"Will you take them with your wreaths for me to the Madonna?" she said, putting them into Assunta's hand. "I am more thankful than either oneof you. "

CHAPTER XVI

Assunta had carried a small tray out to the arbor in the garden, andDaphne was having her afternoon tea there alone. About her, on thefrescoed walls of this little open-air pavilion, were grouped pinkshepherds and shepherdesses, disporting themselves in airy garments ofblue and green in a meadow that ended abruptly to make room for longwindows. The girl leaned back and sipped her tea luxuriously. She wasclad in a gown that any shepherdess among them might have envied, apale yellow crepy thing shot through with gleams of gold. Before herthe Countess Accolanti's silver service was set out on an inlaidFlorentine table, partially protected by an open work oriental scarf. Upon it lay the letter that had come an hour before, and the Signorinanow and then feasted her eyes upon it. Just outside the door was abust of Masaccio, set on a tall pedestal, grass growing on the roughhair and heavy eyelids. Pavilion and tea-table seemed an odd bit ofconvention, set down in the neglected wildness of this old garden, andDaphne watched it all with entire satisfaction over her Sevres teacup. 

Presently she was startled by seeing Assunta come hurrying back with ateacup and saucer in one hand, a hot water jug in the other. The rapidItalian of excited moments Daphne never pretended to understand, consequently she gathered from Assunta's incoherent words neither namesnor impressions, only the bare fact that a caller for the CountessAccolanti had rung the bell. 

"He inquired, too, for the Signorina, " remarked the peasant womanfinally, when her breath had nearly given out. 

"Do you know him?" asked Daphne. "Have you seen him before?"

"But yes, thousands of times, " said Assunta in a stage whisper. "See, he comes. I thought it best to say that he would find the Signorina inthe garden. And the Signorina must pardon me for the card: I droppedit into the tea-kettle and it is wet, quite wet. "

Assunta had time to note with astonishment before she left that hostessand caller met as old friends, for the Signorina held out her hand ingreeting before a word of introduction had been said. 

"I am told that your shepherd life is ended, " remarked Daphne, as shefilled the cup just brought. Neither her surprise nor her joy in hiscoming showed in her face. 

"For the present, yes. "

"You have won great devotion, " said Daphne, smiling. "Only, they allmistake you for a Christian saint. "

"What does it matter?" said Apollo. "The feeling is the same. "

"Assunta knew you at once as one of those in her calendar, " the girlwent on, "but she seems to recognize your supernatural qualities onlyby lamplight. I am a little bit proud that I can detect them by day aswell. "

Her gayety met no response from him, and there was a long pause. To thegirl it seemed that the enveloping sunshine of the garden was only avisible symbol of her new divine content. If she had looked closely, which she dared not do, she would have seen that the lurking sadness inthe man's face had leaped to the surface, touching the brown eyes witha look of eternal grief. 

"I ventured to stop, " he said presently, "because I was not sure thathappy chance would throw us together again. I have come to saygood-by. "

"You are going away?"

"I am going away, " he answered slowly. 

"So shall I, some day, " said Daphne, "and then moss will grow green onmy seat by the fountain, and San Pietro will be sold to some peddlerwho will beat him. Of course it had to end! Sometimes, when you treadthe blue heights of Olympus, will you think of me walking on the hardpavements of New York?"

"I shall think of you, yes, " he said, failing to catch her merriment. 

"And if you ever want a message from me, " she continued, "you must lookfor it on your sacred laurel here on the hill by Hermes' grave. It isjust possible, you know, that I shall be inside, and if I am, I shallspeak to you through my leaves, when you wander that way. "

Something in the man's face warned her, and her voice became grave. 

"Why do you go?" she asked. 

"It is the only thing to do, " he answered. "Life has thrown me backinto the old position, and I must face the same foes again. I alwaysrush too eagerly to snatch my good; I always hit my head against someimpassable wall. I thought I had won my battles and was safe, and thenyou came. "

The life had gone out of his voice, the light from his face. Looking athim Daphne saw above his temples a touch of gray in the golden brown ofhis hair. 

"And then?" she asked softly. 

"Then my hard-won control vanished, and I felt that I could stake myhopes of heaven and my fears of hell to win you. "

"A Greek god, with thoughts of hell?" murmured Daphne. 

"Hell, " he answered, "is a feeling, not a place, as has often beenobserved. I happen to be in it now, but it does not matter. Yes, I amgoing away, Daphne, Daphne. You say that there are claims upon youthat you cannot thrust aside. I shall go, but in some life, some time, I shall find you again. "

Daphne looked at him with soft triumph in her eyes. Secure in thepossession of that letter on the table, she would not tell him yet!This note of struggle gave deeper melody to the joyous music of theshepherd on the hills. 

"I asked you once about your life and all that had happened to you: doyou remember?" he inquired. "I have never told you of my own. Willyou let me tell you now?"

"If you do not tell too much and explain yourself away, " she answered. 

"It is a story of tragedy, and of folly, recognized too late. I havenever told it to any human being, but I should like you to understand. It has been an easy life, so far as outer circumstances go. Until Iwas eighteen I was lord and dictator in a household of women, spoiledby mother and sisters alike. Then came the grief of my life. Oh, Icannot tell it, even to you!"

The veins stood out on his forehead, and his face was indeed like theface of a tortured Saint Sebastian. The girl's eyes were sweet withsympathy, and with something else that he did not look to see. 

"There was a plan made for a journey. I opposed it for some selfishwhim, for I had a scheme of my own. They yielded to me as they alwaysdid, and took my way. That day there was a terrible accident, and allwho were dear to me were killed, while I, the murderer, was cursed withlife. So, when I was eighteen, my world was made up of four graves inthe cemetery at Rome, and of that memory. Whatever the world may say, I was as guilty of those deaths as if I had caused them by my own hand. "

He had covered his face with his palms, and his head was bent. The girlreached out as if to touch the rumpled brown hair with consolingfingers, then drew her hand back. In a moment, when her courage came, he should know what share of comfort she was ready to give him. Meanwhile, she hungered to make the farthest reach of his suffering herown. 

"Since then?" she asked softly. 

"Since then I have been trying to build my life up out of its ruins. Ihave tried to win content and even gladness, for I hold that man shouldbe master of himself, even of remorse for his old sins. You see, I'vebeen busy trying to find out people who had the same kind of misery, orsome other kind, to face. "

"Shepherd of the wretched, " said the girl dreamily. 

"Something like that, " he answered. 

The girl's face was all a-quiver for pity of the tale; in listening tothe story of his life she had completely forgotten her own. Then, before she knew what was happening, he rose abruptly and held out hishand. 

"Every minute that I stay makes matters harder, " he said. "I've got togo to see if I cannot win gladness even out of this, for still mygospel is the gospel of joy. Good-by. "

Suddenly Daphne realized that he was gone! She could hear hisfootsteps on the pebble-stones of the walk as he swung on with his longstride. She started to run after him, then stopped. After all, howcould she find words for what she had to say? Walking to the great gateby the highway she looked wistfully between its iron rods, for one lastglimpse of him. A sudden realization came to her that she knew nothingabout him, not even an address, "except Delphi, " she said whimsicallyto herself. Only a minute ago he had been there; and now she hadwantonly let him go out of her life forever. 

"I wonder if the Madonna threw my roses away, " she thought, coming backwith slow feet to the arbor, and realizing for the first time since shehad reached the Villa Accolanti that she was alone, and very far awayfrom home. 

CHAPTER XVII

San Pietro and Bertuccio were waiting at the doorway, both blinkingsleepily in the morning air. At San Pietro's right side hung a tinypannier, covered by a fringed white napkin, above which lay a smallflask decorated with corn husk and gay yarn, where red wine sparkledlike rubies in the sunshine. The varying degrees of the donkey'sresignation were registered exactly in the changing angles at which hisright ear was cocked. 

"Pronta!" called Assunta, who was putting the finishing touches onsaddle and luncheon basket. "If the Signorina means to climb the MonteAltiera she must start before the sun is high. "

On the hillside above Daphne heard, but her feet strayed only moreslowly. She was wandering with a face like that of a sky across whichthin clouds scud, in the grass about Hermes' grave. In her hand was theletter of yesterday, and in her eyes the memory of the days before. 

"It is all too late, " said Daphne, who had learned to talk aloud inthis world where no one understood. "The Greeks were right in thinkingthat our lives are ruled by mocking fate. I wonder what angry goddesscast forgetfulness upon my mind, so that I forgot to tell Apollo whatthis letter says. "

Daphne looked to the open sky, but it gave no answer, and she paused bythe laurel tree with head bent down. Then, with a sudden, wistfullittle laugh, she held out the letter and fastened it to the laurel, tearing a hole in one corner to let a small bare twig go through. Witha blunt pencil she scribbled on it in large letters: "Let Apollo read, if he ever wanders this way. "

"He will never find it, " said the girl, "and the rain will come andsoak it, and it will bleach in the sun. But nobody else knows enoughto read it, and I shall leave it there on his sacred tree, as my lastoffering. I suppose there is some saving grace even in the sacrificesthat go astray. "

Then she descended the hill, climbed upon San Pietro's back, and rodethrough the gateway. 

An hour later, Assunta, going to find a spade in the tool-house, forshe was transplanting roses, came upon the Signorina's caller ofyesterday standing near the tool-house with something in his hand. Thepeasant woman's face showed neither awe nor fear; only lively curiositygleamed in the blinking brown eyes. 

"Buon' giorno, " said Apollo, exactly as mortals do. 

"Buon' giorno, Altezza, " returned Assunta. 

"Is the Signorina at home?" asked the intruder. 

"But no!" cried Assunta. "She has started to climb the very skyto-day, Monte Altiera, and for what I can't make out. It only wearsout Bertuccio's shoes and the asinetto's legs. "

"Grazia, " said Apollo, moving away. 

"Does his Highness think that the Signorina resembles her sister, theContessa?" asked the peasant woman for the sake of a detaining word. 

"Not at all, " answered the visitor, and he passed into the open road. 

Then he turned over in his hand the letter which he had taken from thelaurel. Though he had read it thee times he hardly understood as yet, and his face was the face of one who sees that the incredible has cometo pass. The letter was made up of fifteen closely written pages, andit told the story of a young clergyman, who, convinced at last thatcelibacy and the shelter of the Roman priesthood were his truevocation, had, after long prayer and much mediation, decided to fleethe snares of the world and to renounce its joys for the sake of blissthe other side of life. 

"When you receive this letter, my dear Daphne, " wrote Eustace Denton, "I shall have been taken into the brotherhood of Saint Ambrose, for Iwish to place myself in a position where there will be no retracing mysteps. "

The face of the reader on the Roman hills, as it was lifted from thepage again to the sunshine, was full of the needless pity of an alienfaith. 

Along the white road that led up the mountain, and over the grass-grownpath that climbed the higher slopes, trod a solitary traveler. Now hisstep was swift, as if some invisible spirit of the wind were waftinghim on; and again the pace was slow and his head bent, as if some deepthought stayed his speed. There were green slopes above, green slopesbelow, and the world opened out as he climbed on and up. Out and outsketched the great Campagne, growing wider at each step, with the gray, unbroken lines of aqueduct leading toward Rome and the shining seabeyond. 

 * * * * *

On a great flat stone far up on the heights sat two motionless figures:below them, partly veiling the lower world, floated a thin mist ofcloud. 

"This must be Olympus, " said Daphne. 

"Any mountain is Olympus that touches the sky, " answered Apollo. 

"Where are the others?" demanded the girl. "Am I not to know yourdivine friends?"

"Don't you see them?" he asked as in surprise, --"Aphrodite just yonderin violet robe, and Juno, and Hermes with winged feet"--

"I am afraid I am a wee bit blind, being but mortal, " answered Daphne. "I can see nothing but you. "

Beside them on the rock, spread out on oak leaves, lay clusters ofpurple grapes, six black ripe olives, and a little pile of biscottiInglesi. The girl bent and poured from the curving flask red wine thatbubbled in the glass, then gave it to her companion, saying: "Quick, before Hebe gets here, " and the sound of their merriment rung down thehillside. 

"Hark!" whispered Daphne. "I hear an echo of the unquenchable laughterof the gods! They cannot be far away. "

From another stone near at hand Bertuccio watched them with eyes thatfeigned not to see. Bertuccio did not understand English, but heunderstood everything else. Goodly shares of the nectar and ambrosiaof this feast had fallen to his lot, and Bertuccio in his own way wasalmost as happy as the lovers. In the soft grass near San PietroMartire nibbled peacefully, now and then lifting his eyes to see whatwas going on. Once he brayed. He alone, of all nature, seemedimpervious to the joy that had descended upon earth. 

It was only an hour since Daphne had been overtaken. Few words hadsufficed for understanding, and Bertuccio had looked away. 

"My only fear was that I should find you turned into a laurel tree, "said Apollo. "I shall always be afraid of that. "

"Apollo, " said Daphne irrelevantly, holding out to him a bunch ofpurple grapes in the palm of her hand, "there is a practical side toall this. People will have to know, I am afraid. I must write to mysister. "

"I have reason to think that the Countess Accolanti will not bedispleased, " he answered. There was a queer little look about hismouth, but Daphne asked for no explanation. 

"There is your father, " he suggested. 

"Oh!" said Daphne. "He will love you at once. His tastes and mine arevery much alike. "

The lover-god smiled, quite satisfied. 

"You chose the steepest road of all to-day, little girl, " he said. "Butit is not half so long nor so hard as the one I expected to climb tofind you. "

"You are tired!" said Daphne anxiously. "Rest. "

Bertuccio was sleeping on his flat rock; San Pietro lay down for abrief, ascetic slumber. The lovers sat side by side, with the mysteryof beauty about them: the purple and gold of nearness and distance;bright color of green grass near, sombre tint of cypress and stone pineafar. 

"I shall never really know whether you are a god or not, " said Daphnedreamily. 

"A very proper attitude for a woman to have toward her husband, " heanswered with a smile. "I must try hard to live up to the character. You will want to live on Olympus, and you really ought, if you aregoing to wear gowns woven of my sunbeams like the one you had onyesterday. How shall I convince you that Rome must do part of thetime? You will want me to make you immortal: that always happens whena maiden marries a god. "

"I think you have done that already, " said Daphne.