m
and silent funeral. The men with their hooked noses and rapacious eyes
were all as like one another as brothers. The two horses separated to
let the procession pass, keeping close to the wall on either side, and
the lovers looked at each other across the dead, their spirits sinking
lower with every moment.

When presently they rejoined one another, Andrea said--'Tell me--what is
the matter? What is on your mind?'

She hesitated a moment before replying, keeping her eyes on her horse's
neck and stroking it with the end of her riding whip, irresolute and
very pale.

'You have something on your mind,' persisted the young man.

'Very well then--yes--and I had better tell you and get it over. I am
going away next Wednesday. I do not know for how long--perhaps for a
long time--perhaps for ever. I cannot say. We must break with one
another. It is entirely my fault. But do not ask me why--do not ask me
anything, I entreat you--I could not answer you.'

Andrea looked at her incredulously. The thing seemed to him so utterly
impossible that it did not affect him painfully.

'Of course you are only joking, Elena?'

She shook her head; there was a lump in her throat, and she could not
speak. She suddenly set her horse into a trot.

Behind them the bells of Santa Sabina and Santa Prisca began to ring
through the twilight. They trotted on in silence, awakening the echoes
under the arches and among the temples--all the solitary and desolate
ruins on their way. They passed San Giorgio in Velabo on their left,
which still retained a gleam of rosy light on its campanile; they passed
the Roman Forum, the Forum of Nerva already full of blue shadow like
that which hovers over the glaciers at night, and stopped at last at the
Arco dei Pantani, where their grooms and carriages awaited them.

Hardly was Elena out of the saddle, than she held out her hand to Andrea
without meeting his eyes. She seemed in a great hurry to be gone.

'Well?' said Andrea as he helped her into the carriage.

'To-morrow--not this evening--I cannot----'

CHAPTER VII

The Campagna stretched away before them under an ideal light, as a
landscape seen in dreams, where the objects seem visible at a great
distance by virtue of some inward irradiation which magnifies their
outlines.

The closed carriage rolled along smoothly at a brisk trot; the walls of
ancient patrician villas, grayish-white and dim, slid past the windows
with a continuous and ge