hurried across the little square and disappeared in the darkness. Odo
had not seen his face; but though his dress was tattered, and he leaned
on a beggar's staff, something about his broad rolling back recalled the
well-filled outline of Cantapresto's cassock.

Sick at heart, Odo rambled on from one street to another, avoiding the
more crowded quarters, and losing himself more than once in the
districts near the river, where young gentlemen of his figure seldom
showed themselves unattended. The populace, however, was all abroad, and
he passed as unregarded as though his sombre thoughts had enveloped him
in actual darkness.

It was late when at length he turned again into the Piazza Castello,
which was brightly lit and still thronged with pleasure-seekers. As he
approached, the crowd divided to make way for three or four handsome
travelling-carriages, preceded by linkmen and liveried out-riders and
followed by a dozen mounted equerries. The people, evidently in the
humour to greet every incident of the streets as part of a show prepared
for their diversion, cheered lustily as the carriages dashed across the
square; and Odo, turning to a man at his elbow, asked who the
distinguished visitors might be.

"Why, sir," said the other laughing, "I understand it is only an
Embassage from some neighbouring state; but when our good people are in
their Easter mood they are ready to take a mail-coach for Elijah's
chariot and their wives' scolding for the Gift of Tongues."

Odo spent a restless night face to face with his first humiliation.
Though the girl's rebuff had cut him to the quick, it was the vision of
the havoc his folly had wrought that stood between him and sleep. To