[94] The two friends were returning to Rome from a visit to a
country-house, where again a mixed company of guests had been
assembled; Marius, for his part, a little weary of gossip, and those
sparks of ill-tempered rivalry, which would seem sometimes to be the
only sort of fire the intercourse of people in general society can
strike out of them. A mere reaction upon this, as they started in
the clear morning, made their companionship, at least for one of
them, hardly less tranquillising than the solitude he so much valued.
Something in the south-west wind, combining with their own intention,
favoured increasingly, as the hours wore on, a serenity like that
Marius had felt once before in journeying over the great plain
towards Tibur--a serenity that was to-day brotherly amity also, and
seemed to draw into its own charmed circle whatever was then present
to eye or ear, while they talked or were silent together, and all
petty irritations, and the like, shrank out of existence, or kept
certainly beyond its limits. The natural fatigue of the long journey
overcame them quite suddenly at last, when they were still about two
miles distant from Rome. The seemingly endless line of tombs and
cypresses had been visible for hours against the sky towards the
west; and it was just where a cross-road from the Latin Way fell into
the Appian, that Cornelius halted at a doorway in a long, low wall--
the outer wall of some villa courtyard, it might be supposed-- [95]
as if at liberty to enter, and rest there awhile. He held the door
open for his companion to enter also, if he would; with an
expression, as he lifted the latch, which seemed to ask Marius,
apparently shrinking from a possible intrusion: "Would you like to
see it?" Was he willing to look upon that, the seeing of which might
define--yes! define the critical turning-point in his days?

The little doorway in this long, low wall admitted them, in fact,