y
seen through his high, barred window, and the fragrant scents of the
outside world which, day by day, had floated through it. He missed the
kindly greeting of his pitying gaoler, and the simple food--the
macaroni, the black coffee, and the fruit--which had been served to him;
and above all, there was something else which he missed.

For through all his apathy he was conscious of a great sickening
disappointment, something gone out of his life which had helped him, day
by day, through all that weary imprisonment. Dear to his heart had grown
that hope of standing one day before the masters of his Order, and
claiming, as his rightful due, vengeance upon those whose word had sent
him into captivity. Dear to his memory and treasured among his thoughts
had grown that hope. In his prison house he had grown narrower; other
thoughts and purposes had faded away. That one only remained, growing
stronger and stronger day by day, until it had seized hold of his whole
being. He lived only through it and with it.

Given some soul-absorbing purpose, some cherished end, however dimly
seen through the mists of futurity, and a man may preserve his reason
through the longest captivity; while, day by day, his narrowing life
contracts till all conscience, all hope, all sentiment, become the
slaves of that one passionate desire. Day by day, it looms larger before
him; day by day, all doubts concerning it grow weaker, and the justice
of it becomes clearer and more unquestioned. Right and wrong, justice
and injustice, according to other men's standards, have no power over it
in his own thoughts. His moral sense slumbers. So deeply has it become
grafted into his life, that he no more questions its right to exist than
he does the presence of the limbs upon his body. As surely as the night
follows day, so surely does his whole being gravitate toward the
accomplishment of his desire. It is a part of what is left of his life,
and if it is smitten, his life is smitten. They are at once sympathetic
and identical, so closely entwined that to sever them is death to both.

Thus it was with Count Marioni, and thus it was that, day by day, he sat
in his sitting-room slowly pining to death. Rude feet had trampled upon
the desire of his life, and the wound was open and bleeding. Only a
little while longer and he would have turned upon his side with a sigh,
and yielded up his last breath; and, so far as his numbed faculties
could have conceived a thought,