A vast irony engulfed her. She could not rest her soul upon this pigmy. She felt revengeful rather toward him--revengeful, because he could sit there opposite her so capable and faithful, so truthful and decent, so utterly unlike the companion whom she needed. Toward twilight he grew restless. He wanted to slip over to his mother for a moment and then, for another moment, he wanted to drop in at the fraternity inn. He had to leave at eight. "It would be better if you remained until to-morrow," she said with an emphasis that gave him pause. "Why?" "If you don't feel that...." She shrugged her shoulders. It wasn't to be done, he assured her, with the best will in the world. There was an investigation in which he had to help the county-physician. A small farmer had died suddenly of what did not seem an entirely natural death. "I suppose," he continued, "one of those love philtres was used with which superfluous people are put under ground there. It's horrible that a decent person has to live among such creatures. If you don't care to do it, I can hardly blame you." She had grown pale and smiled weakly. She restrained him no longer. "I'll be back in a week," he said, slipping on his goloshes, "and then we can announce the engagement." She nodded several times but made no reply. The door was opened and he leaned toward her. Calmly she touched his lips with hers. "You might have the announcement cards printed," he called cheerfully from the stairs. Then he disappeared.... "Is the new uncle gone?" Amanda asked. She was sitting in her little room, busy with her lessons. He had forgotten her. The mother nodded. "Will he come back soon?" Antonie shook her head. "I scarcely think so," she answered. That night she broke the purpose of her life, the purpose that had become interwoven with a thousand others, and when the morning came she wrote a letter of farewell to the beloved of her youth. THE SONG OF DEATH With faint and quivering beats the clock of the hotel announced the hour to the promenaders on the beach. "It is time to eat, Nathaniel," said a slender, yet well-filled-out young woman, who held a book between her fingers, to a formless bundle, huddled in many shawls, by her side. Painfully the bundle unfolded itself, stretched and grew gradually into the form of a man--hollow chested, thin legged, narrow shouldered, attired in flopping garments, such as one sees by the thousands on the coasts of the Riviera in winter. The midday glow of the sun burned down upon the yellowish gray wall of cliff into which the promenade of Nervi is hewn, and which slopes down to the sea in a zigzag of towering bowlders.