t
nobody could tell how.

When they had broken into Apone's chamber, those who rusht in found
him lying on his bed, lifeless, having bled to death. They plundered
the house; the magical implements, the books, the strange furniture,
were all made over to the flames; and throughout the whole city
nothing resounded except curses on the man whom but this morning all
had honoured as a messenger from Heaven. This only embittered the
loathing with which they now revolted from the phantom.

* * * * *

When the turmoil by which the people were agitated was somewhat
allayed, the body of Pietro was silently buried at night, without the
consecrated churchyard. Antonio and Alfonso renewed their friendship,
and attacht themselves to the pious Theodore, who, after going through
the solemn rites and pronouncing a devout oration, had the body of the
beautiful Crescentia laid a second time in the vault designed for her.
Antonio however could not bear to stay any longer at Padua; he
resolved to revisit his native city, that he might settle his affairs,
and then perhaps get admitted into a convent. Alfonso on the other
hand determined to make a pilgrimage to Rome, where the holy Father
had just been proclaiming a year of jubilee with a plenary indulgence
for sins. Not only throughout Italy was every one in motion; but from
France too, and Germany, and Spain, came numerous trains of pilgrims,
to celebrate this till then unheard of solemnity, this great festival
of the church, in the holy city.

After the friends had parted, Antonio pursued his lonely path,
shunning the great road, partly for the sake of brooding
uninterruptedly over his sorrows, and partly to avoid the swarms that
were flocking along the highway, and were often troublesome at the
nightly resting-places.

Thus following his own mood, he roamed through the plains and through
the vallies of the Apennines. One evening the sun set and no inn was
to be seen. As the shades were deepening, he heard a hermit's little
bell tinkling in a wood on one side. He bent his steps toward the
sound, and when the darkness of night was already closing, he arrived
at a small hut, to which a narrow plank led across a brook, surrounded
by bushes.

He found an aged infirm man praying with the deepest devotion before a
crucifix. The hermit received the youth, who greeted him courteously,
with kindness made up a couch of moss for him in a recess of the rock
whic