THE STORY OF A PICTURE.

time lie became uncertain as to carrying it out; but
as he found that every day was more miserable than
the last, after a little consideration he decided on de-
laying no longer.
 On the night when he parted with Maria at the
bridge, he returned by another way to Castaro. Pass-
ing on to Signor Sagasti's house, he entered it unseen,
and began to make the few preparations that were
necessary for his journey. That night he slept but
little, and rising with the first light of day, escaped
noiselessly from the house, and soon had left Castaro
far behind him. We will pass over the time which he
spent in travelling northward from village to village,
staying in some of them for weeks together, while he
worked for a scanty subsistence. After a long and
tedious journey, at one time travelling on foot, at
another carried along the dusty roads at a slower
speed in the cart of a countryman, he at length
reached Rome.
 Here he resolved to stay, taking up at once what-
ever employment he could procure. The autumn was
far advanced, and almost all those who had left the
city in the summer had returned, so that its streets
were again filled with people. He had paid his last
money to the man in whose waggon he had entered
the city, and he felt bewildered as he passed alone
through the crowded thoroughfares. Turning away
from the streets in which most traffic was carried on,
he soon found himself in a quieter part of the city,
and here seeing some people standing round the en-
trance of a courtyard, he stopped, and pressing in
amongst them, looked through the open doorway.
Already night was beginning to close in, but he could
see by the light of a lamp that there was a crowd of
people within, and that some of them were removing