and comfortless. Faded flowers lay on the marble, and now and again dried petals dropped with a low rustle from withered wreaths. Upon the disordered couches stood the goblets of the night before, some overturned, the red-wine forming little pools that looked almost like blood, upon the heavy silks.

The man awoke and gazed around with a dreamy wonder at the scene. The woman did not stir.

The lavender haze gradually lifted and a pale yellow light appeared among the indistinct shapes of the garden. A slave stepped noiselessly across the atrium and drew water from the shallow rainpool in the centre. Outside. someone walked hurriedly over the resounding flags. A name was called. Then for a moment there was silence, then more footsteps and more voices. Servants appeared in the atrium and hastened to their duties, throwing furtive glances at the two reclining figures beside the pool. Through the opening of the roof the sky was clear-a deep blue. A cart rumbled through the street, and a street-boy began to sing in a shrill piercing voice. Pompeii was awake.

The man touched the woman lightly, but still she did not stir. Idly his hand played in her dark brown hair. He touched her forehead and shivered. He called to her. He shook her, but the woman did not move. He took her in his arms and laid her on a couch. He sprinkled her face with cool water, he poured wine through her delicately parted lips. But the pallor in her cheek remained unchanged. Her hair moved softly in the rich morning breeze, and clothed in perfume of Italian roses the fair, silent face.

Through the horrid glaring hours the man watched. Twilight drooped at last like a faded lily; night covered the peristyle and the two voiceless figures like a shroud. The stars shone brightly as before and all unheeding the moon glistened calm and cold over Capri.

The man lifted his head and almost unconsciously repeated the words he had heard the night before: "I have been child and girl and woman in Pompeii." Every inflection, every light and shadow of her voice came back to him. He recalled the strange softness of her eyes, the deep-thrilling impulse of her touch-for a time his withered heart seemed to throb again.

"Sleep is sweet and I am weary," she had said. Yes, sleep must be very sweet. "The lonely sleeper sees neither moon nor stars." He started as his own ominous words came back to him. "He dreams, perhaps—and passes through a strange world of grayness and unknown faces. Or else, he sleeps, unknowing-and forgets."

"Forget!" the man's voice rose in a cry of complete anguish. "Forget! All Wonderful One, be merciful."

Then again there was silence, heavy and unbroken.

II.

Slowly the months labored by, and in utter weariness the man brooded in the gray peristyle, striving to remember. Often for hours he would sit beside the star-lit pool and paint each lineament of the face against the sombre background of night, speaking aloud the words that she had used and clasping soft, invisible, intangible hands upon his shoulders. A mad terror of forgetting weighed on him. He had lost the reality; his only happiness now lay in the remembrance, and he clung fiercely to each picture of his dreams. Dazed and soulless he walked in the present; clarified and almost glad he lived in the strange silence of the past.

With numbing distinctness his words haunted him: "He dreams, perhaps, and passes through a world of grayness and unknown faces. Or else, he sleeps, unknowing-and forgets." There was no hope to him beyond the flimsy span of his years, and the more he pondered the more awful became the thought of death. He pictured himself wandering through the crowd of unknown faces, feeling a thrill, perhaps, as his soul reached out to its fellow in the gray stillness, yet knowing her not, though she walked by his side. Or at other times, he would see himself dying, while all the memories faded and faded into blackness and the end.

At last he pulled his energies together and almost without warning left the pool and the gray peristyle and Pompeii. He went to Rome, and for many months listened to sages and philosophers, Stoics, Sceptics, Epicureans

-and pondered over the dark problems of life and death. Some promised this, some that, some spoke simply, "I do not know," but all said that against forgetfulness there could be no remedy. In despair the man fled back to Pompeii and through the long nights lived the old dreams again.

Then he wandered to Alexandria, thence to Athens and Corinth, to Jerusalem, and on to the silent thinkers of Benares, of Burmah and of Thibet. Some spoke vaguely of another life beyond the shadow, others of endless existences and endless change on earth, but from none could he draw the promise that he would remember. A fakir cajoled him with false prophesies and he lived in wild delight for a day, though he knew that they were false. Then he wandered on, still seeking, still remembering.

A strange fancy called him back to Pompeii. He would have another feast, the same guests, the same singers, same dancers, the garlands of deepscented roses and the warm thrill of the marriage-song,-that would help him to remember.

All was as it had been before, the laughing friends, the shining goblets, the sparkling wine, but it was a hollow cheer that hung over the peristyle. Now and then a cold silence fell on the company, broken by a forced laugh or spiritless song.

The man took part in the feast with a spasmodic, awful cheeriness. Now and then he would close his eyes and his hands would tremble to his shoulders or stroke invisible hair.

At the first opportunity the guests rose to leave. There were no long farewells now, no whisperings among friends-all were animated with the mad desire to rush from the oppressive feast.

Again the man stood in the doorway leading to the gardens. A strong wind was blowing over the bay; in the moon's changing light, he saw the olive woods of Castellamare bend like gigantic, spectral grain. A small bark was careening on the water off Sorrentum. He could see a white line of breakers against the wall of rock, and hear the monotonous rumble of the surf in a dismal chorus on the shores of the bay.

Wearily he leaned against a pillar. He was strangely exhausted. Often of late he had noticed a growing feebleness in his limbs. Was he growing old? Was he dying? He drew himself together, threw back his head and stood erect for a moment, his teeth set. But the effort was too great. Limply he sank to the floor.

In a moment he rose again and crept to the pool. He was only halfconscious now, but he struggled desperately to regain his feet. Long minutes he fought his infirmity with dogged determination not to yield to the thief, who was coming through the night to steal his dreams. At last he fell exhausted on his back beside the pool.

But still he would not yield. "I remember-yes, yes I remember, I will remember," he murmured stolidly. "I see it now-the dark hair with the strange whispers and warm shadows, the eyes like a summer night,-the voice like star music in the stillness of worlds. Yes, yes, I remember. 'Sleep is sweet, and I am weary.' 'The lonely sleeper sees neither moon nor starshe dreams-he sleeps-forgets-"."

Hermann Hagedorn, Jr.

ROMANCE FOR ONE.

The idea first came to Billy when he was coming from Memorial, and it made him hurry home to his room. He slammed the door behind him, and threw his coat on the couch: "I don't know her well enough to send her any kind of a letter, but I can write her any fool thing-so long as I burn it up,” he observed. He sat down at his desk, got out his note-paper-note-paper with a Harvard seal on it, for he was a Freshman-dipped his pen, and began the letter. The first part was easy:

Dearest :

"117 Rochester Hall,
Cambridge.
November Eighteenth.

What next? It was not lack of material that bothered him, but he had never done anything like this before, and it was hard to get started. There was a great deal to say; he had been thinking about her most of the time since the Carvers' dance, almost two weeks ago, though not without repetitions. inspiration! Why not tell her so?

"Ever since the Carvers' dance, two weeks ago tomorrow night, (you may be sure I have not forgotten the day)—"

An

There seemed to be something wrong about this; Billy couldn't help wondering what his conference man would say about it. But courage! What has English A to do with love?

"I have thought of nothing but you, and how sweet and lovely you looked that evening."

This was going beautifully. Why, it was almost poetry. And just then, of all times, there came a bang at the door. Billy had barely time to sweep the letter into his desk drawer before Peter Mather came rushing in. Peter saw him slam the drawer.