ne who had the right to
rule in the things of the intellect. Now he seemed much gentler, less
intellectual, more emotional. One received, at a first meeting with him,
the sensation rather of coming into contact with a man of heart than
with a man of brains. Maurice felt the change at once, and was surprised
by it. Outwardly the novelist was greatly altered. His tall frame was
shrunken and slightly bent. The face was pale and drawn, the eyes were
sunken, the large-boned body was frightfully thin and looked uncertain
when it moved. As Maurice gazed he realized that this man had been to the
door of death, almost over the threshold of the door.

And Artois? He saw a change in the Mercury whom he had last seen at the
door of the London restaurant, a change that startled him.

"Come into our Garden of Paradise and rest," said Hermione. "Lean on my
arm, Emile."

"May I?" Artois asked of Maurice, with a faint smile that was almost
pathetic.

"Please do. You must be tired!"

Hermione and Artois walked slowly forward to the terrace, arm linked in
arm. Maurice was about to follow them when he felt a hand catch hold of
him, a hand that was hot and imperative.

"Gaspare! What is it?"

"Signorino, signorino, I must speak to you!"

Startled, Maurice looked into the boy's flushed face. The great eyes
searched him fiercely.

"Put the donkeys in the stable," Maurice said. "I'll come."

"Come behind the house, signorino. Ah, Madonna!"

The last exclamation was breathed out with an intensity that was like the
intensity of despair. The boy's look and manner were tragic.

"Gaspare," Maurice said, "what----?"

He saw Hermione turning towards him.

"I'll come in a minute, Gaspare."

"Madonna!" repeated the boy. "Madonna!"

He held up his hands and let them drop to his sides. Then he muttered
something--a long sentence--in dialect. His voice sounded like a
miserable old man's.

"Ah--ah!"

He called to the donkeys and drove them forward to the out-house. Maurice
followed.

What had happened? Gaspare had the manner, the look, of one confronted by
a terror from which there was no escape. His eyes had surely at the same
time rebuked and furiously pitied his master. What did they mean?

"This is our Garden of Paradise!" Hermione was saying as Maurice came up
to her and Artois. "Do you wonder that we love it?"

"I wonder that you left it." Artois replied.

He was sunk in a deep straw chair, a chaise longue piled up with