"Well!" he said gently--"What of Father Aloysius? He is 'but man' as you say!--a poor priest having nothing in common with your wealth or your self-will, my child!--one whose soul admits no other instruction than that of the Great Intelligence ruling the universe, and from whose ordinance comes forth joy or sorrow, wisdom or ignorance. We are but dust on the wind before this mighty power!--even you, with all your study and attainment are but a little phantom on the air!" She smiled as he spoke. "True!" she said--"And you would save this phantom from vanishing into air utterly?" "I would!" he answered--"I would fain place you in God's keeping,"--and with a gesture infinitely tender and solemn, he made the sign of the cross above her head--"with a prayer that you may be guided out of the tangled ways of life as lived in these days, to the true realisation of happiness!" She caught his hand and impulsively kissed it. "You are good!--far too good!" she said--"And I am wild and wilful--forgive me! I will say good night here--we are just at the gate. Good night, Marchese! I promise you shall fly with me to the East--I will not go alone. There!--be satisfied!" And she gave him a bewitching smile--then with another markedly gentle "Good night" to Aloysius, she turned away and left them, choosing a path back to the house which was thickly overgrown with trees, so that her figure was almost immediately lost to view. The two men looked at each other in silence. "You will not succeed by thwarting her!"--said Aloysius, warningly. Rivardi gave an impatient gesture. "And you?" "I? My son, I have no aim in view with regard to her! I should like to see her happy--she has great wealth, and great gifts of intellect and ability--but these do not make real happiness for a woman. And yet--I doubt whether she could ever be happy in the ordinary woman's way." "No, because she is not an 'ordinary' woman," said Rivardi, quickly--"More's the pity I think--for HER!" "And for you!" added Aloysius, meaningly. Rivardi made no answer, and they walked on in silence, the priest parting with his companion at the gate of the monastery, and the Marchese going on to his own half-ruined villa lifting its crumbling walls out of wild verdure and suggesting the historic past, when a Caesar spent festal hours in its great gardens which were now a wilderness. Meanwhile, Morgana, the subject of their mutual thoughts, followed the path she had taken down to the seashore. Alone there, she stood absorbed,--a fairylike figure in her shimmering soft robe and the diamonds flashing in her hair--now looking at the moonlit water,--now back to the beautiful outline of the Palazzo d'Oro, lifted on its rocky height and surrounded by a paradise of flowers and foliage--then to the long wide structure of the huge shed where her wonderful air-ship lay, as it were, in harbour. She stretched out her arms with a fatigued, appealing gesture.