more slowly. She was wandering with a face like that of a sky
across which thin clouds scud, in the grass about Hermes' grave.
In her hand was the letter of yesterday, and in her eyes the
memory of the days before.

"It is all too late," said Daphne, who had learned to talk aloud
in this world where no one understood. "The Greeks were right in
thinking that our lives are ruled by mocking fate. I wonder what
angry goddess cast forgetfulness upon my mind, so that I forgot
to tell Apollo what this letter says."

Daphne looked to the open sky, but it gave no answer, and she
paused by the laurel tree with head bent down. Then, with a
sudden, wistful little laugh, she held out the letter and
fastened it to the laurel, tearing a hole in one corner to let a
small bare twig go through. With a blunt pencil she scribbled on
it in large letters: "Let Apollo read, if he ever wanders this
way."

"He will never find it," said the girl, "and the rain will come
and soak it, and it will bleach in the sun. But nobody else
knows enough to read it, and I shall leave it there on his sacred
tree, as my last offering. I suppose there is some saving grace
even in the sacrifices that go astray."

Then she descended the hill, climbed upon San Pietro's back, and
rode through the gateway.

An hour later, Assunta, going to find a spade in the tool-house,
for she was transplanting roses, came upon the Signorina's caller