aced and wealthy. Every consideration told in favor of a policy of
non-interference. The smoking of an inch of good cigar placed the
matter in such a convincing light that Spencer was half resolved to
abide by his earlier decision and leave Maloja next morning.

But the other half, made up of inclination, pleaded against all the
urging of expediency. He deemed the vicar an honest man, and that
stout-hearted phrase of his stuck. Yet, whether he went or stayed, the
ultimate solution of the problem lay with Helen herself. Once on
speaking terms with her, he could form a more decided view. It was
wonderful how one's estimate of a man or woman could be modified in
the course of a few minutes' conversation. Well, he would settle
things that way, and meanwhile enjoy the beauty of a wondrous night.

A full moon was flooding the landscape with a brilliance not surpassed
in the crystal atmosphere of Denver. The snow capped summit of the
Cima di Rosso was fit to be a peak in Olympus, a silver throned height
where the gods sat in council. The brooding pines perched on the
hillside beyond the Orlegna looked like a company of gigantic birds
with folded wings. From the road leading to the village he could hear
the torrent itself singing its mad song of freedom after escaping from
the icy caverns of the Forno glacier. Quite near, on the right, the
tiny cascade that marks the first seaward flight of the Inn mingled
its sweet melody with the orchestral thunder of the more distant
cataracts plunging down the precipices toward Italy. It was a night
when one might listen to the music of the spheres, and Spencer was
suddenly jarred into unpleasant consciousness of his surroundings by
the raucous voices of some peasants bawling a Romansch ballad in a
wayside wine house.

Turning sharply on his heel, he took the road by the lake. There at
least he would find peace from the strenuous amours of Margharita as
trolled by the revelers. He had not gone three hundred yards before he
saw a woman standing near the low wall that guarded the embanked
highway from the water. She was looking at the dark mirror of the
lake, and seemed to be identifying the stars reflected in it. Three or
four times, as he approached, she tilted her head back and gazed at
the sky. The skirt of a white dress was visible below a heavy ulster;
a knitted shawl was wrapped loosely over her hair and neck, and the
ends were draped deftly across her shoulders; but before she turne