be forbidden. The good that wealth, culture, and art, guided by a heart
consecrated to humanity, could work was limitless there.

He now saw that his personal sorrow, his own selfish grief, had come
between all this and himself for six long years. In deep humiliation he
bowed himself; and looking out over the great plain at his feet, in
which lay Assisi and the paths the worn feet of St. Francis and his
brethren had so often trod six centuries ago, now all gilded with the
light of the same moon that was shining over the distant land of his
birth, Robert Sumner pledged his life anew to God and his fellow-man,
and determined that his old grief should be only a stepping-stone to a
larger service; that, keeping Italy and her treasures in his life only
as a recreation and a source of inspiration, he would hereafter live in
his own America.

In the peace of mind that came after the struggle, which was no slight
one, he slept and dreamed,--dreamed of the fair girl he had so loved
with all the force of his young, strong nature, and whom he had so long
mourned. She smiled upon him, and into her smile came the lovelight he
had seen in Barbara's eyes that birthday evening, and then she changed
into Barbara, and he awoke with the thought of the wistful look she had
given him the afternoon before when Malcom's words wounded.

In the morning, as he gave the flowers he had chosen expressly for her,
and their hands for a moment met, the remembrance of this dream flashed
into his mind, and Barbara, surprised, felt a momentary lingering of his
touch.

After breakfast Mrs. Douglas declared her intention to spend the morning
in writing letters, and advised the others to follow her example.