to follow her to the hotel to see Rufus Blight
and then to bid her a casual farewell. I did not follow. Indifferent
she might be, but my mind was made up that she should hear me. There
was no longer any gulf between us. There was only the barrier of cool
indifference which she had raised, and I would fight to break it down.

"Penelope," I said, "there are other things that you and I must speak
of before we go."

"What?" she asked, looking back over her shoulder.

"Of your father," I answered, stepping to the wall and leaning on it.

I think that she saw reproof in my eyes. She hesitated, stirring the
sand with her parasol, and then came to the wall beside me.

"Is there anything that I do not know of him?" she asked, as she stood
with her chin in her hands, looking over the plain. "You wrote so
fully--to my uncle. You might have written to me, David--but still you
wrote to my uncle." There was no hard note in Penelope's voice. "You
cared for him, David, and he died in your arms. It was for that I
forgave you--everything."

"Everything? What do you mean by everything?"

"There are some things that you will never understand."

"But you speak as though I had done much that needed forgiveness."

"We have been to Thessaly, David," she went on, as though she had not
heard me. "We found the very shrine where he died and the place where
you buried him, and we marked it. It seemed best that he should lie
there where he had fought so bravely--his last fight--as though he
would have it that way. How could I help forgiving you after
that--everything?"

"Everything? Penelope, I do not understand."

She laid a hand lightly on my arm. "Tell me, David, what were my
father's last words to you?"

"I wrote them to you," I answered.

"To Uncle Rufus--not to me."

"How could I write to you after that day on the Avenue?"

"That was a small thing, and I was foolish. Now I want to hear it from
you myself."

I looked straight before me as I repeated the words which her father
had said that night as he lay dying on the plain of Thessaly. "Tell
them at home--it was a good fight."

I felt her hand lightly on my arm again. I heard her quiet voice ask:
"Was that all?"

"The rest I could not write," I answered, turning to her, and she
looked from me to the mountains. "He said to me: 'David, take care of
Penelope.'"

For a moment Penelope was very still. It was as though she had not
heard me. Then she hal