other day, that would be a satisfactory and triumphant parting for
one who had come badly off. Her shoulder burned yet where he had
kissed it, and yet she was not angry. He must have known that day how
little she was vexed. If she could only see him once again, she said
wistfully 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 the
highway, and was leaning her forehead against a moss-grown post, when
she heard a sudden noise. Then the voice of San Pietro Martire broke
the stillness of the night, and Daphne, listening, thought she heard a
faint sound of bleating. Hermes was calling her, and Hermes was in
danger. Up the long avenue she ran toward the house, and, seizing the
tiny lamp at the doorway, sped up the slope toward the inclosure where
the two animals grazed, the flame making a trail of light like that of
a firefly moving swiftly in the darkness. The bray rang out again, but
there was no second sound of bleating. Inside the pasture gate she
found the donkey anxiously sniffing at something that lay in the grass.
Down on her knees went Daphne, for there lay Hermes stretched out on
his side, with traces of blood at his white throat.

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

"We must bury him, San Pietro," said Daphne presently. "Come help me
find 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 the
dead. The donkey followed willingly, for he permitted himself to love
his lady with a controlled but genuine affection; and together they
searched by the light of the firefly lamp. At last Daphne halted by a
diminutive cypress, perhaps two feet high, and announced that she was
content.

The tool-house was not far away. Investigating, she found, as she had
hoped, that the d