One sunny afternoon, when Samson had been in the _Quartier Latin_ for eight or nine months, the _concièrge_ of his lodgings handed him, as he passed through the cour, an envelope addressed in the hand of Adrienne Lescott. He thrust it into his pocket for a later reading and hurried on to the _atelier_ where he was to have a criticism that day. When the day's work was over, he was leaning on the embankment wall at the _Quai de Grand St. Augustin_, gazing idly at the fruit and flower stands that patched the pavement with color and at the gray walls of the Louvre across the Seine, His hand went into his pocket, and came out with the note. As he read it, he felt a glow of pleasurable surprise, and, wheeling, he retraced his steps briskly to his lodgings, where he began to pack. Adrienne had written that she and her mother and Wilfred Horton were sailing for Naples, and commanded him, unless he were too busy, to meet their steamer. Within two hours, he was bound for Lucerne to cross the Italian frontier by the slate-blue waters of Lake Maggiore. A few weeks later Samson and Adrienne were standing together by moonlight in the ruins of the Coliseum. The junketing about Italy had been charming, and now, in that circle of sepia softness and broken columns, he looked at her, and suddenly asked himself: "Just what does she mean to you?" If he had never asked himself that question before, he knew now that it must some day be answered. Friendship had been a good and seemingly a sufficient definition. Now, he was not so sure that it could remain so. Then, his thoughts went back to a cabin in the hills and a girl in calico. He heard a voice like the voice of a song-bird saying through tears: "I couldn't live without ye, Samson.... I jest couldn't do hit!" For a moment, he was sick of his life. It seemed that there stood before him, in that place of historic wraiths and memories, a girl, her eyes sad, but loyal and without reproof. For an instant, he could see a scene of centuries ago. A barbarian and captive girl stood in the arena, looking up with ignorant, but unflinching, eyes; and a man sat in the marble tiers looking down. The benches were draped with embroidered rugs and gold and scarlet hangings; the air was heavy with incense--and blood. About him sat men and women of Rome's culture, freshly perfumed from the baths. The slender figure in the dust of the circus alone was a creature without artifice. And, as she looked up, she recognized the man in the box, the man who had once been a barbarian, too, and she turned her eyes to the iron gates of the cages whence came the roar of the beasts, and waited the ordeal. And the face was the face of Sally. "You look," said Adrienne, studying his countenance in the pallor of the moonlight, "as though you were seeing ghosts." "I am," said Samson. "Let's go."