ld. I sold the home and cursed its dank old trees and
toadstools and silent, gloomy chambers the day I signed the deed. I went
to city after city, leaving each as it threatened me with ennui or with
retribution. Money went scattering hither and thither, spent madly,
given, stolen, borrowed, with no regret but that the piper might some
day, when the pay was no longer forthcoming, refuse to play.

Perhaps all would have been different had I not been pursued by a
fiendish fortune at games of chance. As if Fate meant that my ruin
should be complete, she saw to it that I was provided with funds for
the journey. I have seen my last penny hang on the turn of a card, and
come screaming back to me with a small fortune in its wake. Everywhere,
misconstruing the results, men whispered of my luck. It was only once
that the truth was told: at Monte Carlo a pair of red-painted,
consumptive lips pouted at me with terrible coquetry over the table.
"Pah!" said they. "The Devil takes us all on application. It is only
very few he _chooses_! Monsieur has won again!"

She was right, but there is an end to all things and the end of all my
ruinous luck came at Venice. It came with Margaret Murchie; it came, I
believe, at the very instant that I saw her sitting in a cafe there--saw
her sitting alone, golden from head to foot, golden of hair, golden of
skin, golden rays shining from her eyes, showers of gold in the motions
of her body--a living creature of gold, shining as a great mass of it,
warm and bright and untarnished as a coin fresh from the pressure of the
dies. I took her with me to Tuscany--stole her from an old vixen of a
fortune-teller. Ah, I see she did not tell you all!--Never mind. There
was no disgrace for her--she might well have told everything! She needed
no blush for the story. It was the only pretty thing in my life.

The trees of that country grow at the edges of green meadows, tall and
stately as the trees of Lorrain's brush. Sheep, with soft-sounding
bells, feed along the rich rolls of the land. Birds sing in the thicket
at daybreak. The hills are alive with springs of matchless clearness.
Butterflies hover over hedges and dart into half-concealed gardens.

For a month we played there like children. Her ignorance was charming.
Her mind was like a fresh canvas; I could paint whatever I chose upon
it, and loving her, I painted none but beautiful pictures, pictures of
the divine things that were still left in the violated