I must shift the scene again back to the island that I loved. For his Majesty’s clemency justified the Ambassador’s belief in it, and Neopalia was restored to Phroso and to me. Thither we went in the spring of the next year, leaving Denny inconsolable behind, but accompanied by old Hogvardt and by Watkins. This time we went straight out by sea from England, and the new crew of my yacht was more trustworthy than when Spiro and Demetri (ah, I had nearly written ‘poor Demetri,’ when the fellow was a murderer!) were sent by the cunning of Constantine Stefanopoulos to compose it. We landed this time to meet no threatening looks. The death-chant that One-eyed Alexander wrote was not raised when we entered the old grey house on the hill, looking over the blue waters. Ulysses is fabled by the poet to have--well, to put it plainly--to have grown bored with peaceful Ithaca. I do not know whether I shall prove an Ulysses in that and live to regret the new-born tranquillity of Neopalia. In candour, the early stormy days have a great attraction, and I love to look back to them in memory. So strong was this feeling upon me that it led me to refuse a request of my wife’s--the only one of hers which I have yet met in that fashion; for when we had been two or three days in the island--I spent one, by the way, in visiting the graves of my dead friends and enemies, a most suggestive and soothing occupation--I saw, as I walked with her through the hall of our house, mason’s tools and mortar lying near where the staircase led up, hard by the secret door; and Phroso said to me: [Illustration: BACK TO NEOPALIA.] ‘I’m sure you’d like to have that horrible secret passage blocked up, Charley. It’s full of terrible memories.’ ‘My dear Phroso, wall up the passage?’ ‘We shan’t want it now,’ said she, with a laugh--and something else. ‘It’s true,’ I admitted, ‘that I intend, as far as possible, to rule by constitutional means in Neopalia. Still one never knows. My dearest, have you no romance?’ ‘No,’ said Phroso shamelessly. ‘I’ve had enough romance. I want to live quietly; and I don’t want to push anyone over into that awful pool where poor Kortes fell.’ I stood looking at the boards under the staircase. Presently I knelt down and touched the spring. The boards rolled away, the passage gaped before us, and I put my arm round Phroso as I said: ‘Now heaven forbid that I should lay a modern sacrilegious hand on the secret of the Stefanopouloi! For the world makes many circles, Phroso--forward sometimes, sometimes back--and it is something to know that here, in Neopalia, we are ready, and that if any man attacks our sovereignty, why, let him look out for the secret of the Stefanopouloi! In certain moods, Phroso, I should be capable of coming back from the chasm--alone!’