Mrs. Wilson was not at home, so that Philip had only to leave the note. He turned back, crossing the Public Garden in the soft evening. Overhead was the mysterious darkness, quivering with stars. The air was full of suggestions of advancing spring. He felt in his veins an unreasonable restlessness, a stirring as of sap in the tree, a longing for that which he could not define. He heard around him gay voices and laughter, for the night was warm, and people were sitting about on the benches or strolling along the walks. He began to examine the groups he passed, looking with a curious eye at the couples sitting side by side in friendly or in loving companionship. He felt so utterly alone, and all these about him were mated. The tones of women sounded soft and sweet in his ear. Stray verses of Canticles began to float through his mind as wisps of vapor drift across the sky before the fog comes in from the sea. He repeated the collect for the day, and through it all he was thinking that it was possible to walk past the house of Mrs. Fenton. The difference in the time of his reaching the Clergy House would not be so great as to attract notice; he might see her shadow on the curtain; it was not probable, of course, but it was possible; in any case, he should feel near to her. He walked more quickly, and as he did so he heard the notes of a guitar, and then the sound of a girl singing. It was only the hard, coarse voice of a street-singer, and the language was Italian. He did not understand the words, but the music was seductive, the night of spring, star-lit and fragrant with intangible odors, quickened his sense. Constantly recurring in the song, as if set there for his ear, he understood the magic word "_amore, amore_" strung like beads down the necklace warm on a girl's bosom. Surely he had a right to be human. All the world had leave to love. He had given Mrs. Fenton up; she was only a memory; he should never speak to her again; it could not be wrong simply to walk past her house. He had lost even his friend; if this poor act were a comfort, it surely was not sin. "_Amore--amore_," sang the Italian girl over there in the warm, palpitating night. He had consecrated his love as an offering on the altar; surely he need not therefore deny it.