"I have, and I am--been for two years. I was down with my battalion on the Italian front early in 1918, and because I could speak the language they hoicked me out and sent me to Rome on a liaison job. It was Easter time and fine weather and, being glad to get out of the trenches, I was pretty well pleased with myself and enjoying life.... In the place where I stayed there was a girl. She was a Russian, a princess of a great family, but a refugee and of course as poor as sin.... I remember how badly dressed she was among all the well-to-do Romans. But, my God, what a beauty! There was never anything in the world like her.... She was little more than a child, and she used to sing that air in the morning as she went down the stairs.... They sent me back to the front before I had a chance of getting to know her, but she used to give me little timid good mornings, and her voice and eyes were like an angel's.... I'm over my head in love, but it's hopeless, quite hopeless. I shall never see her again." "I'm sure I'm honoured by your confidence," said Dickson reverently. The Poet, who seemed to draw exhilaration from the memory of his sorrows, arose and fetched him a clout on the back. "Don't talk of confidence as if you were a reporter," he said. "What about that House? If we're to see it before the dark comes we'd better hustle." The green slopes on their left, as they ran seaward, were clothed towards their summit with a tangle of broom and light scrub. The two forced their way through this, and found to their surprise that on this side there were no defences of the Huntingtower demesne. Along the crest ran a path which had once been gravelled and trimmed. Beyond through a thicket of laurels and rhododendrons they came on a long unkempt aisle of grass, which seemed to be one of those side avenues often found in connection with old Scots dwellings. Keeping along this they reached a grove of beech and holly through which showed a dim shape of masonry. By a common impulse they moved stealthily, crouching in cover, till at the far side of the wood they found a sunk fence and looked over an acre or two of what had once been lawn and flower-beds to the front of the mansion.