on wheels. The very respectable matchmakers have kindled the marquis on
the one hand, and my father on the other, and Renee passes obediently
from the latter to the former. In India they sacrifice the widows, in
France the virgins.'

Roland proceeded to relate his adventure. Nevil's inattention piqued him
to salt and salt it wonderfully, until the old story of He and She had an
exciting savour in its introductory chapter; but his friend was flying
through the circles of the Inferno, and the babble of an ephemeral upper
world simply affected him by its contrast with the overpowering horrors,
repugnances, despairs, pities, rushing at him, surcharging his senses.
Those that live much by the heart in their youth have sharp foretastes of
the issues imaged for the soul. St. Mark's was in a minute struck black
for him. He neither felt the sunlight nor understood why column and
campanile rose, nor why the islands basked, and boats and people moved.
All were as remote little bits of mechanism.

Nevil escaped, and walked in the direction of the Frari down calle and
campiello. Only to see her--to compare her with the Renee of the past
hour! But that Renee had been all the while a feast of delusion; she
could never be resuscitated in the shape he had known, not even clearly
visioned. Not a day of her, not an hour, not a single look had been his
own. She had been sold when he first beheld her, and should, he muttered
austerely, have been ticketed the property of a middle-aged man, a worn-
out French marquis, whom she had agreed to marry, unwooed, without love
--the creature of a transaction. But she was innocent, she was unaware
of the sin residing in a loveless marriage; and this restored her to him
somewhat as a drowned body is given back to mourners.

After aimless walking he found himself on the Zattere, where the lonely