visit his anger on Del Ferice if he ever got a chance; but Del
Ferice was out of reach of his vengeance, and Donna Tullia Mayer
had not returned to Rome since the previous year. It had been
rumoured of late that she had at last fulfilled the engagement
contracted some time earlier, and had consented to be called the
Contessa Del Ferice; this piece of news, however, was not yet
fully confirmed. Gouache had heard the gossip, and had immediately
made a lively sketch on the back of a half-finished picture,
representing Donna Tullia, in her bridal dress, leaning upon the
arm of Del Ferice, who was arrayed in a capuchin's cowl, and
underneath, with his brush, he scrawled a legend, "Finis coronat
opus."

It was nearly six o'clock in the afternoon of the 23d of
September. The day had been rainy, but the sky had cleared an hour
before sunset, and there was a sweet damp freshness in the air,
very grateful after the long weeks of late summer. Anastase
Gouache had been on duty at the Serristori barracks in the Borgo
Santo Spirito and walked briskly up to the bridge of Sant' Angelo.
There was not much movement in the streets, and the carriages were
few. A couple of officers were lounging at the gate of the castle
and returned Gouache's salute as he passed. In the middle of the
bridge he stopped and looked westward, down the short reach of the
river which caught a lurid reflection of the sunset on its eddying
yellow surface. He mused a moment, thinking more of the details of
his duty at the barracks than of the scene before him. Then he
thought of the first time he had crossed the bridge in his Zouave
uniform, and a faint smile flickered on his brown features. It
happened almost every day that he stopped at the same place, and
as particular spots often become associated with ideas that seem