The stranger made the best of his way from the doomed premises; while

Kenyon--who would willingly have seen the tower crumble down before his

eyes, on condition of Hilda's safety--determined, late as it was, to

attempt ascertaining if she were in her dove-cote.

Passing through the arched entrance,--which, as is often the case with

Roman entrances, was as accessible at midnight as at noon,--he groped

his way to the broad staircase, and, lighting his wax taper, went

glimmering up the multitude of steps that led to Hilda's door. The hour

being so unseasonable, he intended merely to knock, and, as soon as

her voice from within should reassure him, to retire, keeping his

explanations and apologies for a fitter time. Accordingly, reaching the

lofty height where the maiden, as he trusted, lay asleep, with angels

watching over her, though the Virgin seemed to have suspended her care,

he tapped lightly at the door panels,--then knocked more forcibly,--then

thundered an impatient summons. No answer came; Hilda, evidently, was

not there.

After assuring himself that this must be the fact, Kenyon descended the

stairs, but made a pause at every successive stage, and knocked at the

door of its apartment, regardless whose slumbers he might disturb, in

his anxiety to learn where the girl had last been seen. But, at each

closed entrance, there came those hollow echoes, which a chamber, or any

dwelling, great or small, never sends out, in response to human knuckles

or iron hammer, as long as there is life within to keep its heart from

getting dreary.

Once indeed, on the lower landing-place, the sculptor fancied that there

was a momentary stir inside the door, as if somebody were listening at

the threshold. He hoped, at least, that the small iron-barred aperture

would be unclosed, through which Roman housekeepers are wont to take

careful cognizance of applicants for admission, from a traditionary

dread, perhaps, of letting in a robber or assassin. But it remained

shut; neither was the sound repeated; and Kenyon concluded that his

excited nerves had played a trick upon his senses, as they are apt to do

when we most wish for the clear evidence of the latter.

There was nothing to be done, save to go heavily away, and await

whatever good or ill to-morrow's daylight might disclose.

Betimes in the morning, therefore, Kenyon went back to the Via

Portoghese, before the slant rays of the sun had descended halfway down

the gray front of Hilda's tower. As he drew near its base, he saw the

doves perched in full session, on the sunny height of the battlements,

and a pair of them--who were probably their mistress's especial pets,

and the confidants of her bosom secrets, if Hilda had any--came shooting

down, and made a feint of alighting on his shoulder. But, though they

evidently recognized him, their shyness would not yet allow so decided

a demonstration. Kenyon's eyes followed them as they flew upward, hoping

that they might have come as joyful messengers of the girl's safety,

and that he should discern her slender form, half hidden by the parapet,

trimming the extinguished lamp at the Virgin's shrine, just as other

maidens set about the little duties of a household. Or, perhaps, he

might see her gentle and sweet face smiling down upon him, midway

towards heaven, as if she had flown thither for a day or two, just to

visit her kindred, but had been drawn earthward again by the spell of

unacknowledged love.




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