hich that discovery would in all
probability lead. As I thought on the future, a depression for which
I could not account weighed on my spirits. There was not the slightest
reason for the vaguely melancholy forebodings that oppressed me. The
remains, to the finding of which my unhappy friend attached so much
importance, had been traced; they would certainly be placed at his
disposal in a few days; he might take them to England by the first
merchant vessel that sailed from Naples; and, the gratification of his
strange caprice thus accomplished, there was at least some reason to
hope that his mind might recover its tone, and that the new life he
would lead at Wincot might result in making him a happy man. Such
considerations as these were, in themselves, certainly not calculated to
exert any melancholy influence over me; and yet, all through the night,
the same inconceivable, unaccountable depression weighed heavily on my
spirits--heavily through the hours of darkness--heavily, even when I
walked out to breathe the first freshness of the early morning air.

With the day came the all-engrossing business of opening negotiations
with the authorities.

Only those who have had to deal with Italian officials can imagine how
our patience was tried by every one with whom we came in contact. We
were bandied about from one authority to the other, were stared at,
cross-questioned, mystified--not in the least because the case presented
any special difficulties or intricacies, but because it was absolutely
necessary that every civil dignitary to whom we applied should assert
his own importance by leading us to our object in the most roundabout
manner possible. After our first day's experience of official life in
Italy, I left the absurd formalities, which we had no choice but to
perform, to be accomplished by Alfred alone, and applied myself to the
really serious question of how the remains in the convent outhouse were
to be safely removed.

The best plan that suggested itself to me was to write to a friend in
Rome, where I knew that it was a custom to embalm the bodies of high
dignitaries of the Church, and where, I consequently inferred, such
chemical assistance as was needed in our emergency might be obtained. I
simply stated in my letter that the removal of the body was imperative,
then described the condition in which I had found it, and engaged that
no expense on our part should be spared if the right person or persons
could