not curse me--curse me who love you, and who must choke our love----” The whistle of a train caught him back brutally from this state of desperate reflection, in which little by little his will was losing force. Had he waited too long here? No, that must be the express which comes down to Novare, and which gets in a few minutes before the up train to Domodossola. The opportune summons resolved him in his last decision. He left the chapel, crossing the woods at a run and reaching the railway station in a few moments. On the mountains the day was growing brighter, and the moon had begun to efface itself in space. He bought a ticket for Corconio, a station quite near Orta, but in a direction opposite that to which he must travel, his idea being to hinder Edith’s search should she try to overtake him. On the way he would pretend that he had made a mistake. As far as Omegna the railway follows the height above the little lake. In the railway carriage Maurice seated himself so as to ride backwards, and leaned over the door so that his gaze might take the impress of these places that had so belonged to him. In the rising daylight the waters of the lake wrinkled and quivered lightly. The trees of the peninsula showed him their tapering trunks and the play of their branches. Here he had known happiness. The train left Omegna. In vain he tried to see Orta Novarese still, to retain in his eyes, in his heart, the look of this land from which he fled. The seconds which made the distance grow fell like stones in a whirlpool--one by one he heard them. An hour later he arrived at Domodossola, a little Italian town perched among the high Alps, bathed by the green and rapid Rosa above Lago Maggiore. From here the stage between Italy and Switzerland, by way of the Simplon Pass, made its regular departures. With good teams of horses and well-posted relays, it covered the sixty-four kilometres between the Vale of Ossola and the valley of the Rhone in a dozen hours.