boy-Pan do then?"

"Then he would drive them away over the hill-side, and we would hear his
pipe growing fainter and fainter in the distance, until it died away
altogether...."

She sprang up suddenly.

"Oh, Mr. Raymond, what nonsense I'm talking! That life's over and done
with, and I've all these letters to copy!"

"All right--I won't interrupt!" He took up some papers. "But just tell
me this. Do you ever want to go back to Italy?"

She hesitated, considering.

"No, I think not," she said at last. "You see, it would all be
different. My father wouldn't be there, nor the Padre--and even old
Fiammetta may be dead by now."

"But the place would be the same--the sea as blue!"

"Ah, I should like to see the sea!" She spoke softly. "Do you know I've
only seen the sea once since I came to England--when we went to Southend
for the day. And there it was all cold and grey--and the sands were
mud ... it wasn't a bit like my sea, and I wished I'd never seen it."

There were actually tears in her eyes, and Barry cursed himself for a
fool, as he went rather absently into his own room, leaving her to her
work--which work was done none the less carefully because of the vague
longings which the conversation had aroused in the worker's breast.

Punctually at two-thirty Owen returned, and Toni ran down the steps with
a smiling face from which all traces of tears had long since vanished.

The car was waiting in the dingy street, and Toni's foot was actually on
the step when she turned and looked at Owen with a kind of desperate
appeal in her eyes.

"Mr. Rose, do you drive the car yourself?"

"Yes. I sit in front, you know--ah, would you like to sit with me?"

"May I?" Her accent was acceptance enough; and two minutes later Toni,
as happy as a queen, was installed by the driver's side, and the car
began to glide faster and faster down the street on its way to the open
country beyond the town.

When they had gone a little distance Owen turned to look at his
passenger, and for a second his heart stood still at the expression on
her face. Surely no girl would look so rapturously happy unless some
magic were at work....

"Are you warm enough? There's a big coat in the car." He spoke abruptly,
but the girl shook her head gratefully.

"No, I'm quite warm, thank you."

She had tied on her soft little hat with a scarf of some thin material
which framed her face very satisfactorily, and Owen did not press the
question.

On