it had taken her for only a ghost. Of course that English vessel of war rows guard at night. But it isn't to look out for ghosts." 

 "I should think not. Ghosts are of no account. Could there be anything more futile than the ghost of a boat?" 

 "You are one of the strong-minded, signore. Ghosts are the concern of the ignorant—yet who knows? But it does sound funny to talk of the ghost of a boat, a thing of brute matter. For wouldn't a ghost be a thing of spirit, a man's soul itself made restless by grief or love, or remorse or anger? Such are the stories that one hears. But the old hermit of the plain, of whom I spoke, assured me that the dead are too glad to be done with life to make trouble on earth." 

 "You and your hermit!" exclaimed Cosmo in a boyish and marvelling tone. "I suppose it is no use me asking you what I have been just helping you in." 

 "A little smuggling operation, signore. Surely, signore, England has custom houses and therefore must have smugglers too." 

 "One has heard of them of course. But I wouldn't mind a bet that there is not one of them that resembles you. Neither do I believe that they deal with packages as small as the one you lowered into that ghostly boat. You saw her of course. There was a boat." 

 "There was somebody to cut the string, as you see, signore. Look, here is all that twine, all of it but a little piece. It may have been a man swimming in the dark water. A man with a soul, fit to make a ghost of . . . let us call him a ghost, signore." 

 "Oh yes, let us," the other said lightly. "I am sure that when I wake up to-morrow all this will seem to me a dream. Even now I feel inclined to pinch myself." 

 "What's that for, in Heaven's name?" 

 "It's a saying we have in our country. Yes, you, your hermit, our talk, and this very tower, all this will be like a dream." 

 "I would say 'nothing better' if it was not that most people are only too ready to talk about their dreams. No, signore, let all this be to you of less consequence than if it were a tale of ghosts, of mere ghosts in which you do not believe. You forced yourself on me as if you were the lord of this place, but I feel friendly enough to you." 

 "I didn't ask for your friendship," retorted the young traveller in a clear voice so void of all offence that the other man 

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