ore slowly than an acorn turns into a sapling; through the
unmoving weeks that turn into months more slowly than a sapling turns
into a forest tree,--for a word which does not come.

* * * * *

Late in the autumn, six months and five days after the death of the
duke--Michael marked each day with a scratch on the wall--he received a
letter from Wentworth. He was allowed to receive two letters a year.

He dreaded to open it. He should hear she was dead. He had known all the
time that she was dead. That flowerlike face was dust.

With half blind eyes, that made the words flicker and run into each
other, he sought through Wentworth's long letter for her name. Bess, the
retriever, had had puppies. The Bishop of Lostford's daughter had
married his chaplain--a dull marriage, and the Bishop had not been able
to resist appointing his son-in-law to a large living. The partridges
had done well. He had got more the second time over than last year. But
he did not care to shoot without Michael.

He found her name at last on the third sheet, just a casual sentence.

"Your cousin, the Duchess of Colle Alto, has come to live at Priesthope
for good. She has been there nearly six months. I see her occasionally.
At first she appeared quite stunned by grief, but she is becoming rather
more cheerful as time passes on."

The letter fell out of Michael's hand.

"_Rather more cheerful as time passes on._"

Someone close at hand laughed, a loud, fierce laugh.

Michael looked up startled. He was alone. He never knew that it was he
who had laughed.

"_Rather more cheerful as time passes on._"

He looked back and saw the months of waiting that lay behind
him,--during which the time had passed on. He saw them pieced together
into a kind of map; an endless desert of stones and thorns, and in the
midst a little figure in the far distance, coming toiling towards him,
under a blinding sun.

That figure was himself. And this was what he had reached at last. He
had touched the goal.

She had left Italy for good. She had gone back to her own people; not
lately, but long ago, months ago. When he had first heard of the duke's
death, even while he was counting daily, hourly, on her coming as the
sick man counts on the dawn; even then she was arranging to leave Italy
for good. Even then, when he was expecting her day by day, she must have
made up her mind not to speak. She would not face anything for his sake.
Sh