Flinging aside the morbid hesitation, and the dallyings with his own

wishes, which he had permitted to influence his mind throughout the day,

he now hastened to the Via Portoghese. Soon the old palace stood before

him, with its massive tower rising into the clouded night; obscured from

view at its midmost elevation, but revealed again, higher upward, by

the Virgin's lamp that twinkled on the summit. Feeble as it was, in

the broad, surrounding gloom, that little ray made no inconsiderable

illumination among Kenyon's sombre thoughts; for; remembering Miriam's

last words, a fantasy had seized him that he should find the sacred lamp

extinguished.

And even while he stood gazing, as a mariner at the star in which he put

his trust, the light quivered, sank, gleamed up again, and finally went

out, leaving the battlements of Hilda's tower in utter darkness. For the

first time in centuries, the consecrated and legendary flame before the

loftiest shrine in Rome had ceased to burn.




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