It seemed to the guardian that there was some puzzling change in the beautiful woman.  As to the man——­Still wondering, the guardian took off his cap politely and uttered a smiling welcome in Greek.  Then the man smiled too, faintly, and still preserving the under-look of deep gravity, and the guardian knew him.  It was indeed the husband, but grown to look very much older, and different in some almost mysterious way.

The woman made a gesture towards the museum.  The guardian bowed, turned and moved to lead the way through the vestibule into the great room of the Victory.  But the woman spoke behind him and he paused.  He did not understand what she said, but the sound of her voice seemed to plead with him—­or to command him.  He looked at her and understood.

She was gazing at him steadily, and her eyes told him not to go before her, told him to stay where he was.

He nodded his head, slightly pursing his small mouth.  She knew the way of course.  How should she not know it?

Gently she came up to him and just touched his coat sleeve—­to thank him.  Then she went on slowly with her companion, traversed the room of the Victory, looking neither to right nor left, crossed the threshold of the smaller chamber beyond it and disappeared.

For a moment the guardian stood at gaze.  Then he went back to his seat, sat down and sighed.  A faint sense of awe had come upon him.  He did not understand it, and he sighed again.  Then, pulling himself together, he felt for a cigarette, lit it and began to smoke, staring at the patch of sunlight outside, and at the olive tree which grew close to the doorway.

* * * * *

Within the chamber of the Hermes for a long time there was silence.  Rosamund was sitting before the statue.  Dion stood near to her, but not close to her.  The eyes of both of them were fixed upon Hermes and the child.  Once again they were greeted by the strange and exquisite hush which seems, like a divine sentinel, to wait at the threshold of that shrine in Elis; once again the silence seemed to come out of the marble and to press softly against their two hearts.  But they were changed, and so the great peace of the Hermes seemed to them subtly changed.  They knew now the full meaning of torment—­torment of the body and of the soul.  They knew the blackness of rebellion.  But they knew also, or at least were beginning to know, the true essence of peace.  And this beginning of knowledge drew them nearer to the Hermes than they had been in the bygone years, than they had ever been before the coming of little Robin into their lives, and before Robin had left them, obedient to the call from beyond.

The olive branch was gone from the doorway.  Something beautiful was missing from the picture of Elis which had reminded Rosamund of the glimpse of distant country in Raphael’s “Marriage of the Virgin.”  And they longed to have it there, that little olive branch—­ah, how they longed!  There was pain in their hearts.  But there was no longer the cruel fierceness of rebellion.  They were able to gaze at the child on whom Hermes was gazing, if not with his celestial serenity yet with a resignation that was even subtly mingled with something akin to gratitude.