ro of him. Once, when he had left the room, Erica
heard a discussion about him with no little amusement.

"Who is the very tall, white-haired man?"

"The man who saved the child? I believe he must be the Bishop of
Steneborough; he is traveling in the Tyrol, I know, and I'm sure that
man is a somebody. So much dignity, and such power over everybody!
Didn't you see the way the captain of the fire brigade deferred to him?"

"Well, now I think of it," replied the other, "he has an earnest,
devotional sort of face, perhaps you're right. I'll speak to him when he
comes back. Ah!" in a lower voice, "there he is! And Confound it! He's
got no gaiters! Goodbye to my visions of life-long friendship and a
comfortable living for Dick!"

In spite of his anxiety about the lost packet, Raeburn laughed heartily
over Erica's account of this conversation. He had obtained leave to
search the deserted hotel, and a little before ten o'clock they made
their way across the square, over planks and charred rafters, broken
glass, and pools of water, which were hard to steer through in the
darkness. The fire was now quite out, and they were beginning to move
the furniture in again, but the place had been entirely dismantled, and
looked eerie and forlorn. On the staircase was a decapitated statue, and
broken and crushed plants were strewn about. Erica's room was quite bare
of furniture, nor could she find any of the things she wanted. The pen
with which she had been writing lay on the floor, and also a Japanese
fan soaked with water, but neither of these were very serviceable
articles to a person bereft of every toilet requisite.

"I shall have to lie down tonight like a dog, and get up in the morning,
and shake myself," she said, laughing.

And probably a good many people in Innsbruck were that evening in like
case.

Notwithstanding the discomforts, however, and the past excitement, that
was the first night in which Erica had really slept since the day at
Fiesole, the first night unbroken by dreams about Brian, unhaunted by
that blanched, rigid face, which had stamped its image indelibly upon
her brain in the amphitheatre. She awoke, too, without that almost
intolerable dread of the coming day which had hitherto made early
morning hateful to her. It was everything to have an actual and
practicable duty ready to hand, everything to have a busy present which
would crowd out past and future, if only for a few hours. Also, the
disaster had its