Urged by a placid breeze, the small boat sped forward with the graceful glide of a swan, its henna-sail reflected in the rippleless waters like tarnish on green bronze. Almost grazing the lush banks it passed the large hotels on the mainland and skirted the island, where the gardens of the villas sprawl luxuriantly down to the Nile.

Anne settled herself in the stern with a sigh of sheer joy. Beneath a large sun hat, her shadowed eyes looked like shining green pools in a dark forest.

“Wail of shadoof, song of sakieh, how I love it,” she murmured. She gazed upon the shore, where polished brown bodies bent rhythmically over their world-old task. “If you hadn’t taken a holiday this year, Vittorio, I don’t know how I should ever have borne it. Let me see, it’s three years since we were last in Assuan, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but you know you hated to leave the boys, Anne. As for me, I wouldn’t have enjoyed it without you.” His eyes rested upon her fondly. “How are you enjoying your second honeymoon, cara?” He slipped a proprietary arm about her slim waist.

Anne laughed happily and looked askance at the gorgeously-appareled dragoman sitting in the bow with the two sailors. “Really, Vittorio, after ten years of the matrimonial yoke, your devotion deserves honorable mention.” One eye still upon the dragoman, she squeezed his hand surreptitiously. “Will you never remember you’re married to an old woman? I’ll be forty-three in a few months. Heigh-ho!”

Above the mock-tragic sigh her smile was divinely careless, divinely assured. The smile of a woman who knows in every fiber of her being that she is loved. And indeed the years had changed Anne almost not at all. A trifle less slim, her beauty had deepened and perfected in the mold. Brilliant, undimmed, her hair shone like beaten copper beneath the drooping brim of the leghorn.

A little lined, quite gray, certainly more distinguished than before, Vittorio pressed against her side. “Forty-three! Do you call that a great age, foolish one? You are fishing! You know perfectly well that you are as beautiful as ever. If I were jealous, I shouldn’t have a moment’s peace with the raft of men you always have about you, at home in Florence—and the idle brutes at the hotel here, who seem to have nothing to do but to ogle you from the time you appear in the morning until you disappear at night with my most fortunate self. Some day I expect to be murdered by one of your miserable victims!”

“Old villain, if one of your revered colleagues could hear you now! The celebrated Torrigiani, discoverer of famous relics of infamous royalties, making love to his own wife as they float along the Nile. Why, even the Pharaohs would laugh at you for an old-fashioned frump, although it couldn’t have been such a terrible task to be faithful to as many wives as they had!”

As they neared the end of the long island, the branching Nile curved broadly. Myriads of tiny islands like diving seals glutted the waters. Beyond on the shore, the green stopped abruptly, and rolling amber sands stretched palely golden beneath a sky of melted turquoise. Girdled by palms, shod with roses, a pink villa nestled within its garden. From the awninged terrace the sound of faint music wafted upon the scented air, rose above the wail of the shadoof.

Anne and Vittorio looked at each other in surprise.

“A violin,” Anne murmured, and listened. The exquisite tones hummed an air unfamiliar to her ears, an air at once heart-breaking and unspeakably beautiful.

“How lovely!” A shade of sadness crept over her face. “The man certainly knows how to play,” she clasped her hands closely. The sound of a violin still moved her to the marrow.

The gorgeous dragoman turned about abruptly.

“Ah, Madame, ze music please ’er? Zat ees ze mad Englissman.”

“The mad Englishman?”

“Ah, yes. ’E is great artiste. But ’e is seek, very seek. He ’ave ze consump’, you know. Eet ees very bad. ’E spit zee blood. ’E seet all day outside ’e’s ’ouse and play ze veolon, and never speak to no ones. ’E’s man, ’e good friend mine, ’e tell me.”

Hands still clasped together nervously, Anne leaned forward. “What is his name?”

“’Ees name? I forget eet. Very strange for Englis name. More like ze Russie. Pe, Pet, but I forgot how eet finis!”

Pale beneath her large hat, Anne prodded him almost angrily. “Try to think, Abdul. Is—is it Petrovskey?”

The dragoman beamed. “Ah, yes, zat ees eet. Per’aps Madame, she ’ave ’eard of ’eem?”

Speechless, Anne nodded. Her long white throat worked spasmodically. Vittorio put an arm about her quivering shoulders.

“Cara mia, perhaps it is not the same man at all. Do not grieve, dearest.”

She shook her head, while the music rose to a crescendo, and stopped momentarily. “I’m almost sure it must be, Vittorio. Don’t you remember reading in the paper over a year ago that he had retired from the concert stage on account of ill health? And that I wanted to write to him, but decided that after all these years it would be better not to?”

Vittorio nodded. A look of suffering crept into his eyes.

“Perhaps you are right, Anne. Maybe it is Petrovskey. What do you want to do? Would you like to get off and see him?”

She looked at her husband with startled eyes. Was she to see Alexis again after all these years? Did she have the courage to reopen old wounds? He might be horribly changed from the boy she had known. Illness plays such cruel tricks with one. And she wanted so frightfully to remember him as she had seen him last, when he left her garden over ten years ago. Then his beauty had been triumphant. Aureoled by setting sun, his indelible image had stamped itself upon her memory.

Vittorio’s eyes rested upon her pityingly. “Darling, I know it will be hard. If you don’t feel able to face it, you mustn’t force yourself.”

“But if he is ill and lonely?” Her eyes wandered up the garden bank almost fearfully. She turned a pleading face toward her husband. “Vittorio, help me! What shall I do? Do you think seeing me again might do him harm if he is not well?”

Honesty conquering fear, he shook his head. “Why should it? It may even be good for him. Come coraggio, Anne!”

His noble simplicity shamed her. A lump in her throat, she nodded dumbly. Vittorio signed to the delighted dragoman. They swung about and put in at the small landing place. Knees trembling beneath her, Anne disembarked, and she and Vittorio strolled up the grassy bank towards the villa.

The music, stilled for the last few minutes, smote the air once more with a tragic, persistent monotony. The player was evidently improvising upon some doleful, Arabic theme, perhaps a song of the boatmen. Anne pressed against Vittorio. “It makes my very soul shed tears,” she murmured.

They had neared the house. Low, rectangular, surrounded by palms and rosebushes, it rose directly in front of them. Upon the awninged terrace, iron chair tip-tilted against the pinkish walls, the violinist suddenly ceased playing. He laid his instrument upon the table next to him and looked idly into the distance.

Although unspeakably altered, it was undoubtedly Alexis.

Two great tears gliding down her cheeks, Anne signed to Vittorio to wait for her. She mounted the shallow steps alone and approached Alexis, touching him lightly where the slim shoulders showed gaunt beneath the loose linen coat.

“Alexis?”

As if galvanized by the sound of her voice, the motionless figure sprang suddenly to life. The sunken eyes leaped to Anne’s, widened, then remained fixed. She came a little closer.

“It is I, Anne. Don’t you know me, Alexis?” she murmured very gently.

The dilated eyes traveled over her face. He passed an emaciated hand over his forehead, beneath dampened locks. “Have I the delirium again?” His voice was hoarse, almost toneless, not the boyish voice she remembered so well. More altered, in fact, than the poor face which, at a distance, still appeared youthful, although near to, it showed lined and haggard, dry skin stretched taut over hectic cheek-bones.

Anne’s heart yearned over him sorrowfully. She sat down beside him, and took one of the feverish hands between her cool palms. “No, no, don’t be frightened, dear. You are not dreaming. It is really Anne in the flesh. We—that is to say I, was passing by on the water. I heard your violin and stopped to listen. From what my dragoman told me, I guessed it must be you. So I came. Will you forgive me?”

“Forgive you?” The altered voice was full of wonder. He still looked at her as if he scarcely believed in her reality. The great suffering eyes, like those of a stray dog who has found a master, wrung her heart. “Forgive you?” he repeated monotonously.

“Yes. For disobeying you and coming to you after all these years?” Her voice was tremulous. As he listened the stiff figure suddenly relaxed, leaned forward with a choked, comprehending cry.

“Anne, Anne, it is really you! Thank God! I have prayed that I might see you once more before I died. God is merciful after all!”

He grasped her hands, at first timidly, then eagerly with hungry insatiability. Ran feverish fingers up her arms to her shoulders, attained her face, caressed it with the groping, seeking gestures of a blind man. Then, with a smothered cry, he fell back limply in his chair.

“Alexis, my poor boy!” The gaunt, dry hands in hers, Anne pressed them to her heart.

Cracked lips parted over set teeth, he leaned back, gasping a little.

“Forgive me,” he whispered. “I am still rather weak.”

She was frightened.

“Isn’t there something I can do for you? Some medicine you can take?”

With a feeble movement of the still-graceful hands, he brushed the idea aside. “The sight of you—is all—I want to cure me completely,” he articulated between difficult, hissing breaths. “You are more beautiful than ever, Anne.”

Her smile was wistful. “Dear Alexis, I am getting old now.”

“Old?” He looked genuinely surprised. “I see no difference,” he added with no attempt at compliment. “Oh, Anne, the years, how long they have been in passing!”

She choked back a sob.

“And yet you shouldn’t be too unkind to them, dear Alexis, for they have brought you fame.”

A wan smile rode the gaunt face. “Fame? What is that? A bubble which dissipates as you grasp it,” he snatched at the air. “A flower in your buttonhole that smells sweet at first, but becomes rank before nightfall. A nothing for which you pay with your heart’s sweat.” He paused and the thin fingers drummed rhythmically on the iron table. “But you mustn’t think I am ungrateful, Anne. The work itself, I love, but only for itself. It has kept me sane. That—and the boy.” His face brightened. He turned eagerly towards Anne.

“Tell me about him,” she whispered. “He must be a big boy by now.”

“Almost eleven.” The hoarse voice was full of pride. “He is in school in England—I don’t dare to keep him with me now.” He pointed to his chest. “I miss him every minute, Anne. He has always spent his vacations with me ever since he started going away to school. Before that, we were together constantly. When he was a baby the little beggar would go to sleep for my violin, when his nurse could do nothing with him.”

Anne smiled through tears. “You must love each other very much.”

“Oh, we do. He went with me on all my long tours. We have been inseparable ever since——” he choked.

She nodded. “Yes, Alexis, I know.”

He looked at her somberly. The pent-up tragedy of the years passed by in his dilated pupils. “We will not speak of that,” he whispered.

She shook her head. “No, Alexis, but it was ghastly for me, too. I feel I must tell you that, at least. I was ill, not myself, for months. I was on the point of writing you many times but——” she stopped while the crimson spread to her forehead. It seemed too brutal to tell him about Vittorio and the children.

He understood her hesitation and smiled bravely.

“So I did the right thing after all! Anne, dearest, don’t be afraid to tell me the truth. Are you happy at last?”

Words were beyond her for the moment. She nodded.

He sighed contentedly. “I am glad—so glad,” he breathed. “Are you married and have you children?” he continued with eager simplicity.

“Vittorio and I have been married for almost ten years,” she replied brokenly. “We have two little boys,” she added quickly.

Longing swept the drawn features. “How I should love to see them,” he sighed wearily.

“When you are better you must come to Florence and pay us a long visit,” she replied, trying to speak brightly.

He spread his hands, in careless fatalism. He smiled oddly. “When I am better? Yes, when I am better, I’ll come.”

“And bring the boy,” she continued, sturdily ignoring his implication. “What is his name?”

A light dawned back of the misery in his eyes. “Jack. Just a simple English name, as unlike his father’s as possible. And oh, Anne, he is unlike me. He cannot play a single musical instrument, although he has been surrounded by musicians all his life. He has no temperament at all. And he loves sports. He has won a lot of medals already. He isn’t even very good in his studies.”

His naÏve pleasure in the latter fact struck Anne as so comical that she actually laughed.

“Funny Alexis!” she said tenderly. “You certainly make an odd father. But tell me, what school is Jack in? You must give me his address. Do you think he would like to come to us for the holidays? That is——” she added hastily, Alexis was sensitive over receiving favors—“if he has made no other plans?”

His face was almost radiant. “He is at Eton. He would love to go to you, I know. If you really want him. I can’t have him here——” the smile faded. “And I was worrying about where to send him. But—are you sure your husband wouldn’t mind?”

“Vittorio? Never,” said Anne confidently. “He loves children. And—and he admires you tremendously, Alexis. There is no, no hard feeling in his heart for you. Vittorio is a very noble man and he appreciates nobility in others!”

Alexis bowed his head upon his chest. “Thank you, my Anne. May I call you that?”

“Oh, yes, of course, Alexis,” she patted the hand near hers. She hesitated a moment. “Vittorio is here with me now. Would you like to see him, dear? Or would it be too much for you?”

Alexis’ face paled. The dry lips quivered. There was a pause before he replied.

“I should like to see him,” he said firmly. “I want to thank him for—for making you so happy.”

“You are sure?” she insisted, a little frightened at her temerity in bringing the two men together. The two men whose lives had crossed so fatally, and yet who had never, in the course of events, actually met face to face. Yet, if she were really to help Alexis during the next few weeks of their stay, the meeting was inevitable. Her hesitation was palpable. Alexis reassured her, with pathetic vehemence.

“Of course I am sure. Please call him, Anne darling. Can’t you see I’ve passed beyond all stage of jealousy? My illness seems to have extinguished the evil fire forever.”

She smiled at him tenderly. “I’ll call him, then.”

She walked to the edge of the terrace and beckoned towards the garden. “Vittorio!”

The crystalline tones resounded purely. A tall figure rose from a bench back of the palms and approached them.

“This is my husband, Alexis.” Anne’s voice rang slightly tremulous.

Alexis got to his feet rather feebly and the two men clasped hands. Vittorio was the first to speak.

“I am sorry you are not well,” he said gently, as they all sat down.

Alexis smiled. “That is good of you, Marchese. And it is doubly good of you to permit the Marchesa to see me. I—I am very grateful.” The smiling lips quivered.

Vittorio was touched. The stooping figure, the prematurely haggard young face filled him with pity. He made an effort to speak casually.

“I hope you will let us both come to see you very often. We shall be here for at least six weeks.”

“You don’t know what it will mean to me,” said Alexis eagerly. “I’ve hardly seen a soul for months,” he caught himself up sharply, “but I’m sure you must be thirsty. I’ll order something to drink at once.”

“Please don’t bother,” cried Anne.

With a smiling shake of the head, he struck an iridescent little gong on the table beside him. Very correct in semitropical livery, an English servant appeared in the doorway.

“What would you like?” said Alexis, turning to his guests. “Some whisky and soda, Marchese? Or would you prefer iced sherbet? Hopkins keeps some on hand for me all the time, as I find it very soothing. Then there is always Turkish coffee, for which we are famous, aren’t we, Hopkins?”

“Yes, sir.” The man bowed with the flicker of a pleased smile.

They chose the sherbet. Little spiced cakes from the bazaar were passed with it. The conversation became light and unstrained. Since the old days, Alexis had mixed much with the world. Had been a big figure and had progressed beyond ill-ease. After they finished the sherbet, he looked longingly at Anne, and asked if she would not like to try some Slovakian dances with him.

She looked doubtful. “Do you think you ought to to-day, Alexis? Haven’t we tired you sufficiently?”

He shook his head gayly. “Oh, no, I haven’t felt so fit for ages. Have I, Hopkins?”

“No, sir.”

Sherbet cups in his hands, Hopkins coughed discreetly. His mild eyes met Anne’s full of respectful warning. She nodded at him behind Alexis’ shoulder.

“I think you’ve had enough excitement for this afternoon,” she said firmly. “Suppose I come to-morrow for a little while?”

He looked radiant. “To-morrow, and every day while you are here!” he said with the tyrannical air of a spoiled child. “But you must play with me now, this minute. The music only arrived yesterday and I haven’t tried it yet.” He looked at once so wistful and so happy that Anne relented.

“Very well, but only for a little while, mind!”

They entered the house. Rather over-elaborate, the long drawing room was furnished in the French Algerian style with several large divans and an immense Bokhara rug that covered the entire floor. In the corner stood a grand piano brought by Alexis from Cairo. Anne seated herself before it and gave Alexis the key. Hopkins brought up a chair and placed it by the piano for Alexis. He dropped into it with a sulky little air, and commenced to tune up.

“Hopkins thinks it tires me to stand,” he apologized crossly.

Then he broke into the dance, ancient fire unquenched, technique magnificently perfected. Plying the keyboard mechanically, Anne listened, shaken to the very marrow. For a moment it seemed as if time had never existed and she was back again in Long Island, young lover by her side, their souls welded in an ecstasy of sound.

Then Alexis stopped suddenly. He reeled in his chair. “I’m—a bit giddy,” he gasped. The violin dropped on to the floor from inert fingers. Then came the cough, the racking typhoon of a cough that shattered the frail body in its gust.

Speechless with terror, Anne and Vittorio looked at each other helplessly. Hopkins poured some medicine into a wine-glass and held it ready. He shook his head sorrowfully.

“He shouldn’t ’ave done it, ma’am. ’Is cough do be cruel such times.”

A stained handkerchief to his lips, Alexis lay back in his chair. Anne’s eyes fixed themselves upon the blood with a shudder of pity. The medicine administered, she took Hopkins aside.

“Tell me the worst,” she said below her breath. “Is—is he dying?”

Tears gathered in the man’s eyes.

“Oh, yes, ma’am. ’Es very bad. The doctor says ’e can’t last six months.”

“Ah!” Anne stifled a cry, “Have you been with him long?”

The puckered lips trembled. “Hit’ll be goin’ on seven years, ma’am. H’im sure hi don’t know ’at’ll become of me when ’es gone. Hi’ll feel kinder lost-like.”

Anne looked at him gratefully.

“Hadn’t you better get the doctor now?” she whispered above the lump in her throat.

He shook his head sadly.

“Oh, no, ma’am. There h’ain’t nothin’ ’e could do for ’im. Jest to lay down and be quiet like is what ’e needs, ma’am.”

Anne took the hint meekly. She went up to the two men, and took hold of Vittorio’s arm where he stood leaning over Alexis.

“We must go now, Vittorio. Alexis needs rest. I’m afraid we should never have come!” Her sorrowful eyes met Alexis’ apologetic gaze.

“Oh, don’t say that,” he pleaded weakly. “I have an attack like this very often now.”

She held out her hand and he grasped it with feeble fingers.

“It has been heaven to see you again,” he whispered. “Now I can die happy.”

Anne knelt down by the chair. From her aching eyes brimmed scalding tears.

“You are going to get well, dear,” she murmured, “we are going to make him, aren’t we, Vittorio?”

But the end was not yet. Several weeks were to pass first. Meanwhile, Anne went to the villa every day. Once or twice, when Alexis felt stronger, they played a little. But he tired almost immediately. After a while they gave it up tragically, tacitly. She read to him instead. And they talked a little. But day by day he grew perceptibly weaker, and the coughing spells racked him with greater ferocity.

One day a letter came from Jack at Eton, accepting with glee Anne’s invitation for the holidays. And Alexis, realizing that the end was near, listened with joy as Anne read it to him, and added of her own accord that she and Vittorio wanted to look after the boy in the future.

“In that way,” she added almost timidly, “I can be a mother to him after all.”

Alexis made no reply. He merely raised emaciated hands to his face, and Anne saw that he wept.

That afternoon the sunset was unusually resplendent. Purple and gold, it spread to the horizon where rolling, amber sands merged into saffron skies. Anne’s boat, its henna sail lurid against heaven, floated upon a sheet of solid gold. Solid gold, Anne’s gleaming hair as, hatless, she crouched weeping in the stern beside Vittorio. While purple clouds faded into black and black and gold fused into lacquer.

That afternoon the sunset was unusually resplendent, but Anne wept because Alexis was no longer there to see.