“MacPherson never spared me my share of the work, and a hard taskmaster he was, as hard to himself as to me. In the summer we breakfasted soon after the dawn had begun to creep into the sky, then with pick and mattock we trudged to the ruins, there to toil until the heat of the sun glaring upon the quantities of white marble which lay about drove us indoors until evening. MacPherson was always very grudging and resentful with regard to this enforced siesta. In fact he would not admit it as a siesta, but affected to consider it merely as a variation of work, and would remain below in our little sitting-room, turning over for the thousandth time his scraps and fragments of glass, pottery, and other rubbish, while I lay on my bed upstairs damning the mosquitoes and trying to go to sleep. No sooner had I dozed off than I would be aroused by MacPherson’s remorseless voice calling up to know if I was ready. Evening in the ruins I did not mind so much; a little breeze often sprang up from the sea, and I had the prospect of an hour’s gardening immediately in front of me. On the whole I was happy in those hours of toil. Living in my thoughts, and sparing just the bare requisite of consciousness to the needs of my tools, I became almost as taciturn as my companion. Yet I never came to look on Ephesus as a home; I was only a bird of passage—a passage lasting ten years, it is true, but still only a passage. I didn’t see how it was going to end, but my old friend Fate stepped in at last and settled that for me. “It was July, and my annual restlessness had been creeping over me for some time; besides, it was getting unpleasantly hot at Ephesus, and I panted for the cold air of the mountains. So I said to MacPherson at breakfast,— “‘I think the time for my yearly flitting has come round again; in fact, I think I’ll be off to-day.’ “I waited for the, ‘Oh? All right,’ but it didn’t come. Instead of that, he said after a little pause,— “‘I wonder if you would put off going until to-morrow?’ “It was the first time I had ever heard him raise an objection to any suggestion of mine, and I was faintly surprised, but I said,— “‘Of course I will. One day’s just as good as another. Got a special job for me?’ “‘No,’ he said, ‘it isn’t that.’ “I did not question him; I had long since followed his lead, and we never questioned one another.