“Oh, you were always so detached from me, and from--” My father did not finish his sentence, and I shall not finish it now, though I am only too fearful of having discovered its meaning. The respect which he then maintained lays its command upon me, even at this distance. They had both laid bare a hidden wound, which had never quite ceased to bleed. They stood there face to face with that memory between them, terrified perhaps with what they were discovering in the past, not wishing to go farther before me, when an unexpected relief arrived. Mother came in. She had probably heard their voices from her room and had hastened, all a-tremble, to prevent the conflict going farther. With her came the household peace. “What is the matter?” she asked gently. Her mere presence had parted them, and it was impressed upon me that the conversation would have no further interest for any one. “I am here to claim my son,” said father. “Take him, take him,” said grandfather, abandoning me to my fate. But he could not refrain from adding, defiantly: “Take him back if you can.” “He ought not to be parted from God,” said my mother simply, remembering the time I had failed to come to Mass. Then, feeling that this was not the place for me, she pushed me toward them, as a token of reconciliation, with the words: “Kiss them, and go down to Aunt Deen.” I obeyed, and after being negligently or reluctantly kissed I rushed down stairs, not caring how the peace was made, thinking only of Nazzarena who was going away. A little later I heard some one in the garden calling me, but I did not answer. I flew to the chestnut grove on the edge of the domain, and scrambled upon the wall, near the breach that one of the trees had once made merely by the push of its roots, and which had been closed by a grating. From this point I could see the road to Italy. Only one chance was left to me--would the circus troop go that way? I waited long, but not in vain. They are coming, they are coming! First the waggons carrying the tent, the benches, and all the accessories. What wretched horses were drawing them! I looked about for Nazzarena’s black courser, but he was not to be distinguished from the rest of the sorry jades. Then came the _roulottes_ that the folk lived in. Smoke was rising from one or another of the slender chimneys. They were getting dinner ready for the long journey. On one of the rear balconies an old woman was combing a little girl’s hair, the well known parroquet beside them. I was looking, with all my eyes I was looking, for the blond hair of my beloved.