Such was the city through which Hilda, for three years past, had been

wandering without a protector or a guide. She had trodden lightly over

the crumble of old crimes; she had taken her way amid the grime and

corruption which Paganism had left there, and a perverted Christianity

had made more noisome; walking saint-like through it all, with white,

innocent feet; until, in some dark pitfall that lay right across her

path, she had vanished out of sight. It was terrible to imagine what

hideous outrage might have thrust her into that abyss!

Then the lover tried to comfort himself with the idea that Hilda's

sanctity was a sufficient safeguard. Ah, yes; she was so pure! The

angels, that were of the same sisterhood, would never let Hilda come to

harm. A miracle would be wrought on her behalf, as naturally as a father

would stretch out his hand to save a best-beloved child. Providence

would keep a little area and atmosphere about her as safe and wholesome

as heaven itself, although the flood of perilous iniquity might hem

her round, and its black waves hang curling above her head! But these

reflections were of slight avail. No doubt they were the religious

truth. Yet the ways of Providence are utterly inscrutable; and many a

murder has been done, and many an innocent virgin has lifted her white

arms, beseeching its aid in her extremity, and all in vain; so that,

though Providence is infinitely good and wise, and perhaps for that very

reason, it may be half an eternity before the great circle of its scheme

shall bring us the superabundant recompense for all these sorrows! But

what the lover asked was such prompt consolation as might consist with

the brief span of mortal life; the assurance of Hilda's present safety,

and her restoration within that very hour.

An imaginative man, he suffered the penalty of his endowment in the

hundred-fold variety of gloomily tinted scenes that it presented to

him, in which Hilda was always a central figure. The sculptor forgot his

marble. Rome ceased to be anything, for him, but a labyrinth of dismal

streets, in one or another of which the lost girl had disappeared. He

was haunted with the idea that some circumstance, most important to be

known, and perhaps easily discoverable, had hitherto been overlooked,

and that, if he could lay hold of this one clew, it would guide him

directly in the track of Hilda's footsteps. With this purpose in

view, he went, every morning, to the Via Portoghese, and made it

the starting-point of fresh investigations. After nightfall, too, he

invariably returned thither, with a faint hope fluttering at his heart

that the lamp might again be shining on the summit of the tower, and

would dispel this ugly mystery out of the circle consecrated by its

rays. There being no point of which he could take firm hold, his mind

was filled with unsubstantial hopes and fears. Once Kenyon had seemed

to cut his life in marble; now he vaguely clutched at it, and found it

vapor.




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