haunted the
domain of sunrise. Giulio Rivardi, leaning out of one of the richly
sculptured window arches of his half-ruined villa, looked at the sky
with pleasurable anticipation of the morrow's intended voyage in the
"White Eagle."

"The weather will be perfect!" he thought--"She will be pleased. And
when she is pleased no woman can be more charming! She is not
beautiful, like Manella--but she is something more than beautiful--she
is bewitching! I wonder where she means to go!"

Suddenly a thought struck him,--a vivid impression coming from he knew
not whence--an idea that he had forgotten a small item of detail in the
air-ship which its owner might or might not notice, but which would
certainly imply some slight forgetfulness on his part. He glanced at
his watch,--it was close on midnight. Acting on a momentary impulse he
decided not to wait till morning, but to go at once down to the shed
and see that everything in and about the vessel was absolutely and
finally in order. As he walked among the perfumed tangles of shrub and
flower in his garden, and out towards the sea-shore he was impressed by
the great silence everywhere around him. Everything looked like a
moveless picture--a study in still life. Passing through a little olive
wood which lay between his own grounds and the sea, he paused as he
came out of the shadow of the trees and looked towards the height
crowned by the Palazzo d'Oro, where from the upper windows twinkled a
few lights showing the position of the room where the "master of the
world" lay stretched in brainless immobility, waited upon by medical
nurses ever on the watch, and a wife of whom he knew nothing, guarding
him with the fixed devotion of a faithful dog rather than of a human
being. Going onwards in a kind of abstract reverie, he came to a halt
again on reaching the shore, enchanted by the dreamy loveliness of the
scene. In an open stretch of dazzling brilliancy the sea presented
itself to his eyes like a delicate network of jewels finely strung on
swaying threads of silver, and he gazed upon it as one might gaze on
the "fairy lands forlorn" of Keats in his enchanting poesy. Never
surely, he thought, had he seen a night so beautiful,--so perfect in
its expression of peace. He walked leisurely,--the long shed which
sheltered the air-ship was just before him, its black outline
silhouetted against the sky--but as he approached it more nearly,
something caused him to stop abruptly and stare