of her with girls and boys in sail-boats, in motorboats, or on beaches or rocks by the sea; and in a number of them she was seen with the same boy always beside her. Later pictures showed another boy occupying this favoured place; and in others other boys were seen there. Then there were little photographs taken abroad; and in several of these a young Italian cavalry officer was a romantic figure. Claire solemnly threw him into the waste-basket along with the rest.
At last the leathern chest was cleared of everything except a single photograph and a foreign envelope of thin bluish paper. She brought forth the photograph and looked at it long and intently; it was not a portrait; it was a landscape, singular and beautiful—a long ledge of cliff whereon were gardens and walled villas and Greek ruins and an old Mediterranean town, with a snow-capped volcano rising beyond and the sea washing the foot of the cliff. This photograph did not share the fate of the others; she replaced it gently in the case, and then, with fingers that moved slowly and gently, as in some reverent ceremony, she brought forth the bluish envelope and took from it two sheets of paper. One of these was thin and bluish, like the envelope; it was the conclusion of a letter the
