not
to turn my back on the work of three laborious years, or to discredit
that part of it which expressed, however imperfectly, my sympathy with
the struggles of the poor, and my participation in the social problems
with which the world is now astir, I have obtained the promise of my
publisher that the original version of "The Eternal City" shall be kept
in print as long as the public calls for it.

In this form of my book, the aim has been to rely solely on the
humanities and to go back to the simple story of the woman who denounced
her husband in order to save his life. That was the theme of the draft
which was the original basis of my novel, it is the central incident of
the drama which is about to be produced in New York, and the present
abbreviated version of the story is intended to follow the lines of the
play in all essential particulars down to the end of the last chapter
but one. H. C.

Isle of Man, Sept. 1902.

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THE ETERNAL CITY

PROLOGUE

I

He was hardly fit to figure in the great review of life. A boy of ten or
twelve, in tattered clothes, with an accordion in a case swung over one
shoulder like a sack, and under the other arm a wooden cage containing a
grey squirrel. It was a December night in London, and the Southern lad
had nothing to shelter his little body from the Northern cold but his
short velveteen jacket, red waistcoat, and knickerbockers. He was going
home after a long day in Chelsea, and, conscious of something fantastic
in his appearance, and of doubtful legality in his calling, he was
dipping into side streets in order to escape the laughter of the London
boys and the attentions of policemen.

Coming to the Italian quarter in Soho, he stopped at the door of a shop
to see the time. It was eight o'clock. There was an hour to wait before
he would be allowed to go indoors. The shop was a baker's, and the
window was full of cakes and confectionery. From an iron grid on the
pavement there came the warm breath of the oven underground, the red
glow of the fire, and the scythe-like swish of the long shovels. The boy
blocked the squirrel under his armpit, dived into his pocket, and
brought out some copper coins and counted them. There was ninepence.
Ninepence was the