"It is indeed a matter of grave concern," he said at last. "Treason stalks everywhere. I will send for my Spanish Captain, Don Garcia. He may be of assistance to you." And Basil turned and walked down the corridor. After a time Tristan walked out upon the terrace looking toward the Coelian Hill. A brilliant light beat upon domes and spires and pinnacles, and flooded the august ruins of the Cæsars on the distant Palatine and the thousand temples of the Holy Cross with scintillating radiance which poured down from the intense blue of heaven.-- The long lights of the afternoon were shifting towards the eventide, giving place to a limpid and colorless light that silvered the adjacent olive groves. Tristan roused himself with a start. The sense of moving like a ghost among a world of ghosts had left him. He was once more awake and aware. But even now his sorrow, his fears, his hopes of winning again to some safe harbor in the storm tossed Odyssey of his life, were numbed. They lay heavy within him, but without urgency or appeal. What did it matter after all? Life was a little thing, a forlorn minstrel that evoked melancholy strains from a pipe of oaten straw. Life was a little thing, nor death a great one. For his part he would not be loth to take his poppies and fall asleep. At one time or another such moods must come to all of us and be endured. We must enter into the middle country, that dull Sahara of the soul, a broad belt of barren land where no angels seem to walk by our side, nor can the false voices of demons lure us to our harm. This is the land where we are imprisoned by the deeds of others and never by our own. What we do ourselves will send us to Heaven or to Hell; but not to the middle country where the plains of disillusion are. At last the sunset came. The ashen color of the olive-trees flashed out into silver, the undulating peaks of the Sabine Mountains became faintly flushed and phantom fair, as in a tempest of fire the sun sank to rest. The groves of ilex and arbutus seemed to tremble with delight, as the long red heralds touched their topmost boughs. The whole landscape seemed to smile a farewell to departing day. The chimes of the Angelus trembled on the purple dusk. Night came on apace. Tristan re-entered the Lateran Basilica, set the watch and arranged with Don Garcia to spend the night in the sacristy, while Don Garcia was to guard the approaches to the Pontifical Chapel to prevent a recurrence of the horrible sacrilege of the preceding night. One by one the worshippers left the vast nave of the church. After a time the sacristans closed the heavy bronze doors and extinguished the lights, all but the one upon the altar. When they, too, had departed, and deepest silence filled the sacred spaces, Tristan emerged from a side chapel and took his station near the entrance to the sacristy, where, on the preceding night, he had seen the shadow disappear.