Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1909-06-08
CHAPTER XVII.


And so the letter ended There was
not word regarding any future meet
Ing; there was nothing to read be-
tween the lines. A great loneliness
Eurged over Hillard. Was this, then,
really the end? No! He struck the let
ter sharply on his palm. No, this
should not be the end. He would wait
here in Florence till the day of doom.
He would waste no time in seeking
her, for he knew that if he sought he
would not find.
Day after day dragged through the
hours, and Florence grew thinned and
torrid Sometimes he rode past the
villa Ariande. but he never stopped.
He could not bring himself to enter
those confines again alone
In the meantime he had received a
cable from Merrihew, stating that he
and Mrs. Merrihew would be at home
after September. He read the line
many times. Good old Dan! He was
right: 1t took patience and persist
ence to win woman.
1t was in the middle of June, one
afternoon, the concierge handed him
telegram. 1t contained but three
words:
villa Serbolloni, Bellaggio.'
The narrowness of the imagination
of the old masters is generally depict
ed in their canvases. Heaven to them
was a serious business of pearly gates,
harps, halos, and aerial flights on am
bient pale clouds. Or, was it the i'm
agination Of the Church, dominating
the imagination Of the artist? To paint
halos. or to starve? was doubtless the
Hamletonian question of the Renais-
sance. Now Hillards idea of Heaven
and in all Of us it is a singular con-
ception-was Bellaggio in perpetual
springtime; Bellaggio with its
expresses, copper beach, olive, mag
nolia, bamboo, pines, its gardens, its
vineyards, its orchards of mulberry
trees, its restful reaches, for there is
always a quality Of rest in the ability
to see far off; Bellaggio, with the En-
erald Lecco on one side and the blue
green Como on the other, the white
villages nesting along the shores,
and the great shadowful Italian Alps.
The Villa Serbelloni stands on the
wooded promontory, and all day long
the warm sunshine floods it's walls
and terraces and chances from the pol
ished leaves of the tropical plants. The
villa remains today nearly as it was
when Napoleon's forces were in Milan
ind stabling their horses in the mon
astery of Santa Maria dele Grazia, un.
der the fading Last Supper, by Da
Vincf. It is hotel now, the annex
of one of the great hostelries down be-
low in the town. A tortuous path leads
up to the villa; and to climb it is to
perform the initial step or lesson to
proper mountain climbing. Here and
there, in the blue distances, one finds
a patch of snow, an exhilarating fore
taste of the high Alps north of Domo
d Ossola and south Of the icy Rhone.
The six o'clock boat from Como
pulled noisily and smolkily to the quay,
churning her side paddles. The clouds
of sunset lay like crimson gashes on
the western mountain peaks. Hillard
stepped ashore impatiently. What
long day it had been! How white the
Villa Serbelloni seemed up there on
the little hilltop. He gave his luggage
to the porter from the Grand and fol-
lowed him on foot to the hotel, which
was only dozen steps from the land
all but empty at this time of year. He
was dining at the Villa Serbelloni
above. He dressed quickly, but with
the lovers care and the lovers doubt.
Less than an hour after leaving the
boat he stepped forth from the gardens
and too kthe path up to the villa. The
bloom on the wings of the passing
swallow, the clouds on the face of the
smooth waters, the incense from the
flowers now rising upon the vanished
sun, the tinted crests encircling, and
the soft wind which murmured drow-
silly among the overhanging branches,
all these made the time and place as
perfect as lovers mind could fancy.
Sonia, Sonia, his step took the
rhythm of it as he climbed. Sonia,
Sonia; the very silence seemed to