“Whose is it?” I asked, and was greatly surprised when he told me he had done it himself, from memory. I had never seen any of his work before, and I congratulated him on his success, which seemed to me to be really a genuine one. I asked another question, but he did not reply. He merely returned me my candle, which I held up for another look. The small, wavering, uncertain flame lent a curious air of life to the portrait, and I continued to regard it, for the frankness and simplicity of the young face gave me great pleasure. When I glanced round I discovered I was alone. My companion had disappeared without my noticing it, and evidently he had gone out, not by the way we had entered, but by another door at the farther end of the room. That this was the case I had more positive proof next moment, for a sudden draught extinguished my candle so swiftly and unexpectedly that I had an odd feeling that somebody had stolen up behind me and blown it out. OWEN GILL. CHAPTER I What is there in this house, in these surroundings, so utterly different from those I was born amongst, that revives a swarm of memories of my childhood and youth? My notes are piled up on the table before me, they have been there for several days, and I have not touched them, though I came here to work. A warm Italian sun floods the stiff and formal garden stretching from my window, with its pale paved walks, its fountain, and dark cypress-trees; but when I shut my eyes, it is quite another garden that I see, and now, when I have at last taken up my pen to write, it is not to fulfil the task I had set myself, but to chatter idly of a boyhood passed under other skies, grayer, softer, and colder. The odd fact is that ever since my arrival here, in spite of my being upon “classic soil,” in a district rich in historical suggestion, and full, too, of the colour and odour of the south, I have been communing daily, hourly almost, with my own youth. I should like to set down simply what that youth was, without embroidery, without suppression, though, on the other hand, a mere bald enumeration of the outward facts will be little to my purpose. The facts in themselves are nothing. Unless I can recapture the spirit that hovered behind them, my task will have been fruitless, and even though in my effort to do so I shall probably accentuate it, alter it, clip its wings and make it heavy, yet that must be my aim if I am to write at all. I have little eloquence, and perhaps no power of evocation, but the whole great, soft, time-toned picture is before me at this moment, and I cannot resist the temptation to linger over it. If I linger over it pen in hand, what matter? * * * * *