oincidence--had laid the first
stone, and each day placed others in firm and secure position round it.
The building was largely unconscious. It is the way with true friendship.
The life, also, conduced to it. There are fewer barriers of convention on
board ship than in any other mode of living. Mrs. Grundy, it is to be
supposed, suffers from sea-sickness, and does not care for this method of
travelling. In fact, it would appear that she seldom does travel, but
chooses by preference small country towns, mainly English ones, for her
place of residence.

The days were days of sunshine and colour, the changing colour of sea
and sky; the nights were nights of mystery, veiled in purple,
star-embroidered.

One day Pia made clear to him the explanation of her Irish colouring and
her Italian surname. Her mother, she told him, was Irish; her father,
English. Her baptismal name had been chosen by an Italian godmother. She
was eighteen when she married the Duc di Donatello. On their wedding day,
when driving from the church, the horses had bolted. She had been
uninjured; he had received serious injuries to his head and spine. He had
lived for seven years as a complete invalid, totally paralysed, but fully
conscious. During those seven years, she had never left him. Two years
previously he had died, and she had gone to live at her old home in
England,--the Manor House, Woodleigh, which had been in the hands of
caretakers since her parents' death. Her husband's property had passed to
his brother. The last six months she had been staying with a friend at
Wynberg.

She told the little tale extremely simply. It never occurred to her to
expect sympathy on account of the tragedy which had marred her youth, and
by reason of which she had spent seven years of her life in almost utter
seclusion. The fact was merely mentioned in necessary explanation of her
story. Antony, too, had held silence. Sympathy on his part would have
been somehow an intrusion, an impertinence. But he understood now, in
part at least, the steady gravity, the hint of sadness in her eyes.

The name of Woodleigh awoke vague memories in his mind, but they were too
vague to be noteworthy. Possibly, most probably, he told himself, he had
merely read of the place at some time. She mentioned that it was in
Devonshire, but curiously enough, and this was an omission which he noted
later with some surprise, he never questioned her as to its exact
locality.

On his side, he