Lands of sunshine and regions of snow, storm-tossed waves and calmest sea, visions of beauty and visions of pain; men that live in the clear light of day and men that crawl in the shadows of night. She had seen things that had their beginnings in joy, and things that ended in sorrow, creatures that live and creatures that die, women that love and others that hate. Murder she had seen; and her ears had heard the last groaning sighs of the dying, as they had hearkened for the sounds of hope when the human soul was being cast naked into this world of sorrow. The beginnings and the ends. Yes, everything had come her way,--her eyes were dim and tired from having seen all too much! And now as she waited here not far from that island of promise, she knew that the youthful wanderer was giving all his soul in an agony of hope and expectation. She knew she was poor and helpless before these mysteries of life; that at times even the wisest hands must hang in idle rest. Yes, day by day Eric came and sat beside this treasure he had found, and yet it was still as far removed as in the days when he was only dreaming. Instead of in sleep, now his waking sight drank in the vision which was part of his living being. But although he had poured out every supplication and ardent prayer his mind could conceive, he never could imprison a single look that he knew was conscious of his presence. She sometimes would talk, but more often she would play upon her beloved violin, and then Eric would feel that each drop of his blood was rushing through his veins like a mountain torrent; or he would be possessed by a frantic longing to be free of his body to soar with the music far up into heaven. It would happen that she would take hold of his hand and lead him to places of strangest solitude, and there her visionary words would try to describe the marvellous things her brain was seeing. He followed the flight of her extraordinary thoughts; but each day he was filled with deeper depression, knowing that never had she consciously looked at his face, never had she realized that it was an unusual companion who was now at her side, that she was alone with a being consumed by love. She talked in a confiding voice as a child speaks to its mother, or as one that had the habit of conversing alone in the night. The things she said, and conjured up before his eager mind, were saturated with such unheard-of sweetness that Eric lived in a world he had never known. And so the days passed one by one; the bluebells faded and died, and still Eric clung to the forlorn hope that Stella's eyes would suddenly open and see him at her side. The gypsies folded their tents and moved farther on, roaming from spot to spot. Wherever they went Eric was always with them. For hours he would walk in the dust of the roads, keeping pace with the bare feet of the woman he loved.