ter the individual struggle and misery? These can be lived down. The
heart can be silenced--nerves steadied--strength restored. Will and idea
remain--the eternal spectacle of the world, and the eternal thirst of
man to see, to know, to feel, to realize himself, if not in one passion,
then in another. If not in love, then in patriotism--art--thought."

* * * * *

The Duchess and Julie landed presently beneath the villa of which they
were the passing tenants. The Duchess mounted the double staircase where
the banksia already hung in a golden curtain over the marble balustrade.
Her face was thoughtful. She had to write her daily letter to the absent
and reproachful Duke.

Julie parted from her with a caress, and paused awhile to watch the
small figure till it mounted out of sight. Her friend had become very
dear to her. A new humility, a new gratitude filled her heart. Evelyn
should not sacrifice herself much longer. When she had insisted on
carrying her patient abroad, Julie had neither mind nor will wherewith
to resist. But now--the Duke should soon come to his own again.

She herself turned inland for that short walk by which each day she
tested her returning strength. She climbed the winding road to Criante,
the lovely village above Cadenabbia; then, turning to the left, she
mounted a path that led to the woods which overhang the famous gardens
of the Villa Carlotta.

Such a path! To the left hand, and, as it seemed, steeply beneath her
feet, all earth and heaven--the wide lake, the purple mountains, the
glories of a flaming sky. On the calm spaces of water lay a shimmer of
crimson and gold, repeating the noble splendor of the clouds; the
midgelike boats crept from shore to shore; and, midway between Bellaggio
and Cadenabbia, the steam-boat, a white speck, drew a silver furrow. To
her right a green hill-side--each blade of grass, each flower, each
tuft of heath, enskied, transfigured, by the broad light that poured
across it from the hidden west. And on the very hill-top a few scattered
olives, peaches, and wild cherries scrawled upon the blue, their bare,
leaning stems, their pearly whites, their golden pinks and feathery
grays all in a glory of sunset that made of them things enchanted,
aerial, fantastical, like a dance of Botticelli angels on the height.

And presently a sheltered bank in a green hollow, where Julie sat down
to rest. But nature, in this tranquil spot, had still ne