on the other side, in front of which some carters were
unharnessing their horses with much lively invective. The setting sun
lit up the group of men and beasts vividly.

The people at the inn showed not the faintest sign of surprise at the
entry of the two strangers. Two or three men shivering with ague, morose
and jaundiced, were crouching round a square brazier. A red-haired
bullock-driver was snoring in a corner, his empty pipe still between his
teeth. A pair of haggard, ill-conditioned young vagabonds were playing
at cards, fixing one another in the pauses with a look of tigerish
eagerness. The woman of the inn, corpulent to obesity, carried in her
arms a child which she rocked heavily to and fro.

While Elena drank the water out of a rude earthenware mug, the woman,
with wails and plaints, drew her attention to the wretched infant.

'Look, signora mia--look at it!'

The poor little creature was wasted to a skeleton, its lips purple and
broken out, the inside of its mouth coated with a white eruption. It
looked as if life had abandoned the miserable little body, leaving but a
little substance for fungoid growths to flourish in.

'Feel, dear lady,--its hands are icy cold. It cannot eat, it cannot
drink--it does not sleep any more----'

The mother broke into loud sobs. The ague-stricken men looked on with
eyes full of utter prostration, while the sound of the weeping only drew
an impatient movement from the two youths.

'Come away--come away!' said Andrea, taking Elena by the arm and
dragging her away, after throwing a piece of money on the table.

They returned over the bridge. The river was lighted up by the flames of
the dying day, and in the distance the water looked smooth and
glistening as if great spots of oil or bitumen were floating on it. The
Campagna, stretching away like an ocean of ruins, was of a uniform
violet tint. Nearer the town the sky flushed a deep crimson.

'Poor little thing!' murmured Elena in a tone of heartfelt compassion,
and pressing closer to Andrea.

The wind had risen to a gale. A flock of crows swept across the burning
heavens, very high up, croaking hoarsely.

A sudden passionate exaltation suddenly filled the souls of the two at
sight of this vast solitude. Something tragic and heroic seemed to enter
into their love and the hill-tops of their passion to catch the blaze of
the stormy sunset. Elena stood still.

'I can go no further,' she gasped.

The carriage was still a