No; that could never fail, never be in vain, not wholly, not eternally, in vain, something whispered to her stricken heart, and she fell on her knees among the melting hailstones, and prayed with greater passion than ever before, consumed with anguish, uplifted by faith, quivering with love and adoration, thrilled through all her sorrow with a deep divine sweetness; and notwithstanding the fervour of her supplication, full of quiet acquiescence in whatsoever the divine will should accord, even though it seemed despair. The rosy fire died from the cross and the lower hill-crests, and faded lingeringly from the topmost peaks, leaving wooded steep and gorge in deep shadow, while Agatha poured out her heart on the rock steps with tears and prayers unutterable. And when she rose, soothed and tranquillized, and sat a moment in the fork of the eucalyptus, looking down across the torrent and the town to the café by the sea, where she had left Ivor an hour before, she could not know that he had just signed the papers put before him by the Anarchist. Yet she turned from the darkening, murmuring sea and faded sunset sky, and walked lightly home through the monastery grounds in the violet afterglow, her heart full of peace. Not that she was destined to reach home without further adventure; for she had but crossed the level under the cypresses when a slender figure that had been leaning on the western wall, watching the dying glory change on mountain and sea, stood up, darkly outlined against the lucid sky, and came forward to meet her with quick but halting step. "I thought I could not be mistaken," the thin man said; "I have a keen ear for footsteps, and at once recognized yours. But----" He paused, struck by the mingled fatigue and exaltation on her face, seen clear in the after-glow. "You are tired; you have been worried--more than worried. Pardon me, Miss Somers; but you are young, you are alone and unprotected--a friend may be of service to you, however intrusive and undesired. Is there anything I could do for you? Could I knock somebody down? I observed something this morning--here--on this very spot--you had been annoyed--upset--a person--I trust you had been subjected to no undesirable attention from that unworthy quarter." A gentle smile flitted over Agatha's face; the idea of the thin man knocking anybody down--or even entertaining such a project--was extremely funny. Indeed, there was this evening something entirely foreign to his usual self in Mr. Welbourne's voice and manner. His self-control was imperfect; he stammered; there was fire in his eye. "I wonder," he added, "that the people of the house should admit that man to a small and respectable hotel like this. It is an outrage----"