the
Apennines. As the chill rain drenched him, there seemed almost a sense
of relief in the substitution of a bodily suffering to the fever that
burned in his brain, and seeking out the bleakest part of the old
ramparts, he stood breasting the storm, which had now increased to a
perfect hurricane.

"The rain cannot beat upon one more friendless and forlorn," muttered
he, as he stood shivering there; the strange fascination of misery
suggesting a sort of bastard heroism to his spirit. "The humblest peasant
in that dreary Campagna has more of sympathy and kindness than I
have. He has those poor as himself and powerless to aid, but willing to
befriend him." There was ever in his days of depression a fierce
revolt in his nature against the position he occupied in the world. The
acceptance on sufferance, the recognition accorded to his pupil
being his only claim to attention, were painful wounds to a haughty
temperament, and, with the ingenuity of a self-tormentor, he ascribed
every reverse he met in life to his false position. He accepted it, no
doubt, to be able to help those who had made such sacrifices for him,
and yet even in this it was a failure. There lay his poor mother, dying
of very want, in actual destitution, and he could not help--could not
even be with her!

Though his wet clothes, now soaked with half-frozen drift, sent a deadly
chill through him, the fever of his blood rendered him unconscious of
it, and his burning brain seemed to defy the storm, while in the wild
raging of the elements he caught up a sort of excitement that sustained
him. For more than two hours he wandered about in that half-frenzied
state, and at length, benumbed and exhausted, he turned homeward. To
his surprise, he perceived, as he drew near, that the windows were all
alight, and a red glow of a large wood-fire sent its mellow glare across
the street; but greater was his astonishment on entering to see the
tall figure of a man stretched at full length on three chairs before the
fire, fast asleep, a carpet-bag and a travelling-cloak beside him.

Never was Layton less disposed to see a stranger and play the host to
any one, and he shook the sleeper's shoulder in a fashion that speedily
awoke him; who, starting up with a bound, cried out, "Well, Britisher,
I must say this is a kinder droll way to welcome a friend."

"Oh, Colonel, is it you?" said Layton. "Pray forgive my rudeness. But
coming in as I did, without expecting any one, wet