little faster.

"What is there to see at Olympia, Nicholas?" she said, speaking rather
loudly in order that Dion might hear.

Nicholas woke up, and hastily, in a melodious voice, quoted some scraps
of guide-book. Rosamund did not find what she wanted among them. She
knew already about the ruins, about the Nike of Paeonius and the Hermes
of Praxiteles. So she left the young Greek to his waking dream, and
possessed her soul in a patience that was not difficult. She liked to
dwell in anticipation. And she felt that any secret this land was about
to reveal to her would be, must be, beautiful. She trusted Greece.

"We aren't far off now," said Dion presently, as they rode up the
valley--a valley secluded from the world, pastoral and remote, shaded by
Judas trees.

"How peaceful and lovely it is."

"And full of the echoes of the Pagan feet which once trod here."

"I don't hear them," said Rosamund, "and I am listening."

"Perhaps you could never hear Pagan echoes. And yet you love Greece."

"Yes. But I have nothing Pagan in me. I know that."

"It doesn't matter," he said. "You are the ideal woman to be in Greece
with. If I don't come back to Greece with you, I shall never come back."

They rode on. Her horse was following his along the windings of the
river. Presently she said:

"Where are we going to sleep? Surely there isn't a possible inn in
this remoteness?--or have they build one for travelers who come here in
winter and spring?"

"Our inn will be a little above Olympia."

The green valley seemed closing about them, as if anxious to take them
to itself, to keep them in its closest intimacy, with a gentle jealousy.
Rosamund had a sensation, almost voluptuous, of yielding to the pastoral
greenness, to the warm stillness, to the hush of the delicate wilds.

"Elis! Elis!" she whispered to herself. "I am riding up into Elis, where
once the processions passed to the games, where Nero built himself a
mansion. And there's a secret here for me."

Then suddenly there came into her mind the words in the "Paradiso" which
she had been dreaming over in London on the foggy day when Dion had
asked her to marry him.

The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence from warm love and living hope
which conquereth the Divine will.

It was strange that the words should come to her just then. She could
not think why they came. But, repeating them to herself, she felt how
very far off she was from Paganism. Yet she had within her