meant a complete disappearance from her life.  She had not turned me away or dismissed me; she had done no cruel thing, said no word that wounded or would grow poignant in memory.  She had been in every way an angel of light—­and for these reasons I could not see her again.  Whatever I was in truth, rid of accidental emotions if such they were, I had filled her mind with fear and doubt.  Thus our fate was made, our sorrow was born.

As I walked along in the darkness toward the village, my loneliness in the world came over me.  I had not attached many to me; many of those I had won were gone.  Was there a home for me?  How could I return to the house in Chicago?  To what there?  I had come from Italy to America; from a city of memories and spiritual richnesses to the tumult of New York.  Above all I had found heaven in Isabel and lost it.  My life had come to flower only to be withered.  I had stepped out of heaven into hell, and from a great light into darkness.

But the soul does not give up while there is breath.  If one is ill he looks forward to health; if he is slowly dying he hopes for years of life; if one friend is lost there is another to turn to.  No heart so desperate but can imagine a haven, however poor it may be, and go to it.

In this hour my mind turned to Reverdy back in Jacksonville.  There could be no truer, kinder heart.  There in the prairie of Illinois that I had grown up with he would be my solace.  What had I to do with Rome, with art; what with a woman like Isabel?  I had ventured on sacred ground and this was my punishment.  A god had driven me forth.  I had won my heart’s desire; but before I could enjoy it a god, ironical but just, intuitive and swift to punish, had sent me down to my place in life.  I would go to Reverdy, and stand before him in my familiar guise.  He would not see Rome in my eyes; he would not know that I had been in Paradise; that in my heart shone a face that I had put by and should never look on again.  Every man is a temple of forsaken shrines, of altars where candles burned replenished by spirits that need open no doors—­a temple whose portals are barred.

I went through Chicago, which had grown and changed in my absence so marvelously, straight to Jacksonville, regarding nothing on my way, reading nothing.  Like a supernatural being which has girdled the earth in a second, it seemed that I stood before Reverdy and Sarah and their children.  I stood before them, but I could hear the bells of Rome; and I saw Isabel as she handed the candle to me and walked from the room.

I supplemented what I had written to them of Dorothy’s death; then I told them brokenly of Rome.  Where could I begin, what words could I select to express briefly my experiences?  But besides, Isabel was all my thought, and of her I could not speak.  Then we had the meal.  The house, the town, the surrounding country, began to assemble themselves together familiarly.  I was back.  The old life was slipping on me as one removes his best dress for the overalls of work.  Pinturicchio!  What light was falling on those soft and tender cheeks in the Vatican?  But where was Douglas?