“You will go back,” she said to him one day when the grief which was in him broke down his courage and his resignation, and she saw great tears rise slowly to his eyes. He gave a gesture of despair. “Ah, never.” “Yes, you will go back.” “What should you know, poor child?” “I know nothing,” said Muriella. “But I pray for you.” He bent his head. “I thank you, dear.” She looked at him with a wistful, yearning look, which he did not interpret because his thoughts were elsewhere than with her. “I will pray always,” she said briefly. “I am sure you will go back to your own land one day.” “You say so to console me. Those whom I have offended do not pardon.” “May it not be put in their hearts to relent?” “As soon will yonder oaks rise and walk.” Yet, though his reason rejected it, her persistent faith entered into his heart against his reason, and was sweet to him with the sweetness of hope. After all, save death, nothing was absolutely hopeless. He was still young enough to see many changes in the world--wars, revolutions, dynasties, policies, might all alter the face of Europe, and with the larger national life, his own obscure individual fate. It was the wildest and vaguest dream, but it trembled on the edge of the unknown future, as far away in the west and the night, at times, a faint spark of light shone, which was the beacon above the sea at Palo; not a score of times in a year was that far-off speck visible, but to know that it was there lent a sense of safety and companionship even in the darkest murk of storm. So to him was precious that sense of hope in another soul; he could not share its belief, but it saved him from despair. “You will go back to your own land,” said Muriella; and the sound of the promise was sweet to his ear, though spoken by a poor ignorant girl who did not even know where his own land lay. VI. In her, as in most women of her nation, religious faith was very strong, but vague. It was an intense force, blind and irrational, which had no more doubt of itself than she had that her feet were planted on the solid earth. But it was shapeless and dim as the lineaments of the Scythian Diana, which lay so long under the waters of the Lake of Nemi. The early years of her childhood had been happy, for her mother had been good, and Viterbo remained in her recollection transfigured in the golden light of a lost joy. It was to her a holy place: her mother lay there. Slowly there entered into her mind and matured in it the idea of going on pilgrimage to Viterbo, and there beseeching that the saints and archangels should grant the stranger his desire.