They were now in the park, wandering amid the chequered lights and shades of the wooded hollows. Phil looked round him with a sense of recollection. ‘Is there not a well somewhere here, Roma?—a wishing-well?’ ‘Yes; but how do you know?’ ‘I must have been here, I think, in that former life, of which we were talking just now. Full moon and a summer’s night—is not this just the right time? Shall we go and wish there together now, Roma? Surely such an opportunity is not to be lost!’ She smiled an assent. ‘Are you superstitious, Marco?’ He looked at her with a glad, proud smile. ‘I think I could be so to-night.’ Phil led the way through the woodland path, down to the secluded well. He remembered the path as well as if he had only traversed it yesterday, and Roma forgot to be surprised. It was in reality a spring, this so-called ‘wishing-well:’ a clear bubbling spring, rising up in a natural stone basin, lined with moss and fringed with fern. A quaint stone cup hung by a rusty iron chain beside the spring, and round the edge of the basin a quaint inscription was carved, stating the magic properties of the well. Phil stood looking thoughtfully into the dimpling water, where faint reflected lights and shadows played, and then he took the cup and filled it. ‘Have you a wish ready, Roma?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then wish and drink; for something within tells me that the hour is favourable, and the spirits propitious to our wishes.’ Roma smiled and drank, and Phil tossed the remaining drops upon the grass in a silvery shower, pronouncing a few mystic words. ‘Why so?’ asked Roma. ‘We always used to do it——’ there was a momentary pause—‘in my country, at a fairy well, which my sister and I sometimes visited as children. But I must wish now, and the cup must not be used twice upon the same night. I must take the bolder course, and brave the wrath of the spirits. Do they not say that those who do so, gain a more generous fulfilment, or a marked repudiation of their wish?’ ‘How do you know?’ asked Roma again. ‘I suppose wishing-wells are pretty much the same all the world over,’ he answered lightly. ‘Anyway, I will be bold. Now for it!’ He bent his head over the sparkling spring, and took a long, deep draught. Then he stood upright, and his face looked earnest and steadfast. ‘You have wished a long wish,’ remarked Roma, when at length he moved. ‘I have—a long and complex wish—so complex that I fear even the spirits of the well will find it hard to answer every part, even if they try.’ ‘You should have faith,’ said Roma, smiling. ‘To doubt them is fatal.’ ‘Then I will not doubt,’ he answered quickly. ‘I will believe they can accomplish all; but they have a hard task before them!’ Roma looked curiously at him. ‘I wonder what you can have wished.’ ‘Something concerning my own personal history—you know we must not reveal our wishes.’