The morning broke cloudy as he rode out of the gates. Beyond the suburbs
a few drops fell, and as he pressed forward the country lay before him
in the emerald freshness of a spring rain, vivid strips of vineyard
alternating with silvery bands of oats, the domes of the walnut-trees
dripping above the roadside, and the poplars along the water-courses all
slanting one way in the soft continuous downpour. He had left Turin in
that mood of clinging melancholy which waits on the most hopeful
departures, and the landscape seemed an image of anticipations clouded
with regret. He had had a stormy but tender parting with Clarice, whose
efforts to act the forsaken Ariadne were somewhat marred by her
irrepressible pride in her lover's prospects, and whose last word had
charged him to bring her back one of the rare lap-dogs bred by the monks
of Bologna. Seen down the lengthening vista of separation even Clarice
seemed regrettable; and Odo would have been glad to let his mind linger
on their farewells. But another thought importuned him. He had left
Turin without news of Vivaldi or Fulvia, and without having done
anything to conjure the peril to which his rashness had exposed them.
More than once he had been about to reveal his trouble to Alfieri; but
shame restrained him when he remembered that it was Alfieri who had
vouched for his discretion. After his conversation with Trescorre he had
tried to find some way of sending a word of warning to Vivaldi; but he
had no messenger whom he could trust; and would not Vivaldi justly
resent a warning from such a source? He felt himself the prisoner of his
own folly, and as he rode along the wet country roads an invisible
gaoler seemed to spur beside him.

The clouds lifted at noon; and leaving the plain he mounted into a world
sparkling with sunshine and quivering with new-fed streams. The first
breath of mountain-air lifted the mist from his spirit, and he began to