‘He said that I died of fever.’ ‘And she believes it?’ ‘She does, Phroso; and she appears to be really very sorry.’ ‘Ah, but what joy will be hers when she learns--’ ‘But, Phroso, before she thought I was dead, she had made up her mind to wait no longer.’ ‘To wait no longer? What do you mean? Ah, my lord, tell me what you mean!’ ‘What has happened to me, here in Neopalia, Phroso?’ ‘Many strange things, my lord--some most terrible.’ ‘And some most--most what, Phroso? One thing that has happened to me has, I think, happened also to the lady who waited.’ Phroso’s hand--the one I had not taken--was suddenly stretched out, and she spoke in a voice that sounded half-stifled: ‘Tell me, my lord, tell me. I can’t endure it longer.’ Then I grew grave and said: ‘I am free. She has given me my freedom.’ ‘She has set you free?’ ‘She loves me no longer, I suppose, if she ever did.’ ‘Oh, but, my lord, it is impossible.’ ‘Should you think it so? Phroso, it is true--true that I can come to you now.’ She understood at last. For a moment she was silent, and I, silent also, pierced through the darkness to her wondering face. Once she stretched out her arms; then there came a little, long, low laugh, and she put her hands together, and thrust them, thus clasped, between mine that closed on them. ‘My lord, my lord, my lord!’ said Phroso. Suddenly I heard a low mournful chant coming up from the harbour, the moan of mourning voices. The sound struck across the stillness which had followed her last words. ‘What’s that?’ I asked. ‘What are they doing down there?’ ‘Didn’t you know?’ The bodies of my cousin and of Kortes came forth at sunset from the secret pool into which they fell: and they bring them now to bury them by the church. They mourn Kortes because they loved him; and Constantine also they feign to mourn, because he was of the house of the Stefanopouloi.’ We stood for some minutes listening to the chant that rose and fell and echoed among the hills. Its sad cadences, mingled here and there with the note of sustained hope, seemed a fitting end to the story, to the stormy days that were rounded off at last by peace and joy to us who lived, and by the embraces of the all-hiding all-pardoning earth for those who had fallen. I put my arm round Phroso, and, thus at last together, we listened till the sounds died away in low echoes, and silence fell again on the island. ‘Ah, the dear island!’ said Phroso softly. ‘You won’t take me away from it for ever? It is my lord’s island now, and it will be faithful to him, even as I myself; for God has been very good, and my lord is very good.’ I looked at her. Her cheeks were again wet with tears. As I watched a drop fell from her eyes. I said to her softly: ‘That shall be the last, Phroso, till we part again.’