Of John Derringham she thought constantly.  He was not buried in that outer circle of oblivion from which the thoughts unconsciously shy—­as we bury our dead, their going so shrouded in pain that we long to blot out the memory of them.  John Derringham was always with her.  She prayed for his welfare with the fervor and purity of her sweet soul.  He was her spirit lover still.  He could never really belong to any other woman, she knew.  And as the days went by a fresh beauty grew in her pale face.  The night sky itself seemed to be melted in her true eyes with the essence of all its stars.

Cheiron often wondered at her.  There was never a word or allusion to the past.  She was extremely quiet, and sometimes the droop of her graceful head and the sad curves of her tender lips would make the kind old cynic’s heart ache.  But she was always cheerful, taking unfeigned interest in the country and the people, delighting in the simple faith of the peasants and the glory of some of the old cathedrals.

And Aphrodite traveled everywhere with them.  A special case had been made for her—­and Halcyone often took her out to keep them company in the late evenings or when a rare rain storm kept them indoors.

Mr. Carlyon had not written to John Derringham since his engagement had been announced.  He wished all connection with his former pupil to be broken off.  He had no mercy for his action, he could not even use his customary lenient common sense towards the failings of mankind.

John Derringham had made his peerless one suffer—­and his name was anathema.  As far as Cheiron was concerned he was wiped off the list of beings who count.

Halcyone’s delicate sense of obligation had been put at ease by her stepfather.  He had made over to her a few hundreds a year which he said had belonged to her mother—­the simple creature was too ignorant of all business to be aware whether this was or was not the case.  She had grown to have a certain liking for James Anderton.  There was a hard, level-headed, shrewd honesty about him, keen to drive a bargain—­even the one about her mother to which Priscilla had alluded and to which they had never made any further reference—­but, when once he had gained his point, he was generous and kind-hearted.

He could not help it that he was not a gentleman, Halcyone thought, and he did his best for everybody according to his lights.

Her few hundreds a year seemed untold wealth to her who had never had even a few sixpences for pocket money!  But there was always some instinctive dislike for the thing itself.  It remained to her a rather unpleasant medium for securing the necessities of life, though she was glad she now possessed enough not to be a burden upon her aunts, and could hand what was necessary for her trip over to the Professor.

They wanted to get into Italy as soon as it should be cool enough.  August saw them in an out-of-the-way village in Switzerland.