GUY could not make the effort to fight the doom upon their love declared by Pauline in her letter. He felt that if he did not acquiesce he would go mad: a deadness struck at him that he fancied was a wonderful sense of relief, and hurriedly packing a few things he went in pursuit of his friend Comeragh in case it might not even now be too late to go to Persia. However, though he did not manage to be in time for Sir George Gascony, his friend secured him a job on some committee that was being organized in Macedonia by enthusiastic Liberals. His previous experience there was recommendation enough, and after he had seen his father, acquired his outfit and settled up everything at Plashers Mead by means of Maurice Avery, early in September he set out Eastward.

In Rome Guy picked up Michael Fane who was on the point of starting for the Benedictine monastery at Cava. Having a few days to spare before he went on to Brindisi, he agreed to spend the time with Michael tramping in the sun along the Parthenopean shore.

"I can't understand what consolation you expect to find by shutting yourself up with a lot of frowsty monks," said Guy fretfully.

"Nor can I understand when just at the moment you have been dealt the blow that should at last determine if you are to be an artist," retorted Michael, "I can't understand why you choose that exact moment to go and be futile in Macedonia."

"Do you think I would be an artist now, even if I could?" asked Guy fiercely. "How I hate such a point of view. No, no, I have made myself miserable and I have made someone else miserable because I thought I wanted to be an artist. But never, never, shall that old jejune ambition be gratified now."

"You'll never try to write anything more?"

"Nothing," said Guy.

"Then what has all this been for?"

"Perhaps to come back in a year, and ... listen:

Do you think I want to come back in a year and still be able to versify my grief like that? I look forward to something better than minor poetry."

"You mean you still hope...." his friend began.

"I daren't even hope yet ... but all my life I'll do penance for having said that an artist must be free."

They had reached the inn at Amalfi, where letters might be waiting for them.

Guy read aloud one which had arrived from Maurice Avery.

"Maurice rises like a phoenix from our ashes," said Guy grimly.

"He was always irrepressible," Michael agreed.

"And still you haven't answered my question about your monkery," Guy persisted.

"You want action. I want contemplation. But don't think that I'm going to take final vows to-morrow."

"And do you really believe in the Christian religion?" Guy asked incredulously.

"Yes, I really do."

"What an extraordinary thing!"

Next day they parted, Michael going to the Benedictine house at Cava, Guy pressing on toward Salerno. With every breath of the rosemary, with every sough of the Aleppo pines, with every murmur of the blue Tyrrhenian winking far below, more and more sharply did he realize that what he had thought at the time was wonderful relief had been more truly despair. Yet in a happier September might he not hope to come back this way, setting his face toward England?